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Hamilton,  Gail,  1833-1896 
A  Washington  Bible  class 


A  WASHINGTON 
BIBLE-CLASS 


1BY 
GAIL  HAMILTON 


NEW  YORK 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


i8qi 


COPYEIGHT,   1S90, 

By  D.  APPLETON   AND  COMPANY. 


CONTENTS. 


CnAPTEB  PAGE 

Introduction 1 

I. — A  Peeliminaey  Skirmish 8 

II. — The  Real  Genesis 25 

III. — The  King  of  Salem 64 

IV. — The  Institutes  of  Moses T9 

V. — The  Origin  of  Sacrifice 94 

VI. — The  New  Testament  Solvent  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Sacrifices 122 

VI  r. — The   Election   of   Paul   and    the   Election   of 

Presbytery 148 

VIII. — Spiritual  Heat  considered  as  a  Mode  of  Motion  .  173 

IX. — The  Sectarian  Argument 209 

X. — Inspiration 230 

XI. — Oneness  with  Christ 270 

XII. — Miracles 283 


A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS, 


INTEODUCTIOK 

Theology,  always  an  interesting  theme,  is  never  more 
interesting  than  in  an  intellectual  center  like  Washing- 
ton. As  the  basis,  the  interpretation,  and  the  inspiration 
of  politics,  theology  is  surveyed  with  a  keener  scrutiny 
than  in  the  more  tranquil,  the  less  strenuous  spheres  of 
life.  In  an  atmosphere  of  debate,  theoretical  errors  are 
promptly  detected ;  and  men  who  are  wont  to  reply, 
listen  to  the  argument  of  the  pulpit  with  an  alertness 
born  of  the  habit  of  replying,  though  they  listen  perforce 
in  silence. 

A  mother  in  Washington,  high  in  the  ranks  of  poli- 
tics, fashion,  and  all  the  arts  and  graces  of  life,  a  mother 
of  growing  sons,  took  counsel  with  other  mothers  like- 
minded,  as  to  what  should  be  the  religious  teaching  of 
her  boys. 

Their  clever,  alert  young  minds  absolutely  rejected 
sundry  received  doctrines  ;  nor  could  she  enforce  state- 
ments which  her  own  reason  could  buttress  only  with 
authority.  A  mother  of  growing  daughters,  a  lissome, 
gladsome,  winsome  group,  unburdened  her  soul  of  simi- 
lar perplexities  concerning  their  uprearing.  Two  young 
girls,  one  just  bounding  into  the  gay,  bright,  fascinating 
world  of  belledom,  the  other  just  looking  out  of  it  with 
1 


2  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

happy,  questioning  eyes  into  a  deeper  and  dearer  world, 
found  in  their  beautiful,  dutiful  days,  time  and  space 
and  thought  for  the  most  solemn  problems  of  life,  and 
were  forever  seeking  the  eternal  light.  A  perfect  woman, 
nobly  planned,  superb  in  her  splendid  prime,  tranquil  in 
conscious  power,  moving  on  with  no  more  sign  of  disturb- 
ance or  revolt  than  the  shining  moon  curving  through 
cloudless  skies,  lifted  by  chance  one  day  the  curtain  of 
her  thought  and  revealed  a  mind  utterly  at  variance  with 
the  tenets  of  the  church  whose  service  she  attended  and 
whose  creed  in  its  institutions  she  upheld.  Another, 
rich  in  every  gift  that  love  and  nature  can  lavish,  never 
wearied  of  blessing  the  world  with  sympathy,  succor,  and 
the  cheer  of  her  gracious  presence ;  but  for  all  spiritual 
consolation  toward  herself  could  only  say,  with  sweet  but 
final  accent,  '^  When  I  was  in  sore  need,  religion  did  not 
help  me  " ;  yet  in  every  word  and  deed  tested  the  truth 
of  Christ,  ^^  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these,  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto 
me."  On  all  sides  the  unquenchable  thirst  for  God,  the 
free  action  of  thought,  were  battling  with  ecclesiasticisra, 
and  would  not  be  put  off  with  authority  or  put  off  from 
religion. 

Then  up  spake  a  woman  to  whom  theology  is  the 
breath  of  life  :  '*  Let  us  leave  speculation  to  itself  ;  let  us 
cease  to  question  error,  and  let  us  search  for  truth.  The 
Bible  is  the  source  of  our  formulated  faith.  Whether  it 
is  authority  or  not,  nothing  else  is  authoritative.  Let  us 
see,  not  what  is  Calvinism,  or  Lutherism,  or  Agnosticism, 
or  Catholicism,  or  Universalism,  but  what  is  Scripture  ; 
not  what  men  say  Scripture  says  and  means,  but  what 
Scripture  itself  means  and  says." 

Thus  the  Lord  gave  the  word  to  the  Bible  class. '  The 
women,  prepared  to  publish  the  tidings,  were  a  gi'eat 
host.     The  wife  of  the  President,  with  highest  interest  in 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

highest  things,  was  foremost  in  support.  The  wife  of  the 
Secretary  of  State,  ever  hospitable  to  truth,  proffered  her 
drawing-room  for  the  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  But 
before  the  class  had  formed  itself  for  its  first  gathering, 
a  fleecy,  filmy  cloud,  that  had  boded  no  evil  in  a  sunny 
sky,  suddenly  deepened  and  darkened  with  the  thunder- 
bolts of  God.  From  the  home  which  would  have  wel- 
comed the  Bible  class,  from'  a  home  which  had  held  four 
and  thirty  years  of  unbroken  family  unity,  a  son  of  rare 
promise,  a  daughter  of  tender  love, 

"  Went  pressing,  almost  hand  in  hand, 
Too  early  to  the  unknown  land," 

and  all  the  world  was  changed. 

Sad  days  lengthened  into  sad  weeks  of  heartache  that 
can  cease  only  with  heart-beat,  the  pain  of  an  absence 
that  only  presence  can  heal.  With  the  ever-watchful  tact 
of  sympathy,  the  wife  of  the  Vice-President  began  to  re- 
vive the  idea  of  the  Bible  class,  and  to  insure  it  by  fixing 
its  early  date.  The  wife  of  the  President  promptly  re- 
newed her  fealty,  and  remained  a  constant,  suggestive, 
enthusiastic  student,  commanding  her  children  and  her 
household  after  her,  not  only  in  stimulating  attendance 
and  attention,  but  in  an  always  generous  consideration. 
Both  houses  of  Congress,  the  circles  of  science,  of  litera- 
ture, of  education,  of  diplomacy,  sent  their  delegates. 
Presbyfcerianism,  Congregationalism,  Unitarianism,  Epis- 
copacy, were  ably  and  amiably  represented,  and  never 
more  agreeably  than  when,  in  Horatian  phrase,  beautiful 
daughters  came  with  their  more  beautiful  mothers.  The 
English  Church  and  the  Greek  Church  bent  to  each  other 
with  stately  courtesy.  The  Quaker  faith  was  there,  robed 
according  to  the  last  dainty  imported  touch  of  the  chil- 
dren of  this  world,  but  with  all  the  gentle  aspect  and 
saintly  bearing  of  George  Fox  and  the  Whittiers,  brother 
and  sister.     Ignatius  Loyola  and  Jonathan  Edwards  sat 


4.  A  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

side  by  side  in  French  costume  of  faultless  cut  and  won- 
derful combination  ;  and  the  one  bad  danced  no  more 
lightly  or  deeply  into  Saturday  night  than  the  other. 
Young  Radicalism  found  the  texts  for  old  Orthodoxy ; 
and  both  smiled  approval  whenever  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit  slipped  in  between  the  loosened  joints  of  Error's 
gaping  armor.  All  came  together,  not  to  advocate  any 
theory  or  repel  any  doctrine  whatever,  but  to  learn  for 
themselves  what  the  Bible  teaches. 

From  the  beginning  there  was  not  wanting  a  man  to 
stand  before  the  Lord  ;  but  in  the  beginning  he  stood 
alone.  Just  one  man  was  present  at  the  first  assembling, 
protecting  and  protected  by  his  serene  and  lovely,  but 
resolute,  young,  keen-minded  Presbyterian  wife,  and  bore 
himself  so  heroically  amid  the  somewhat  formidable  femi- 
nine host  that  one  man  more,  a  senator  of  the  United 
States,  nerved  himself  to  walk  in  erect  and  smiling,  as  if 
brave,  after  the  lesson  was  over,  and  patronizingly  com- 
ment, as  he  advanced,  "I  hear  you  have  demolished  the 
Serpent  and  the  Garden  of  Eden  at  the  first  bout.  What 
is  the  next  objective  point  ?  "  But  he  never  smiled  again  ! 
As  time  went  on,  men  crept  in  singly  and  in  pairs,  till, 
numbers  lending  courage.  Cabinet,  clergy,  press,  diplo- 
macy, science,  literature,  **  magnetism,"  came  to  be  rep- 
resented, not  by  their  women  only,  but  by  men.  So 
mightily  grew  the  word  of  God,  and  prevailed. 

In  the  outset  the  idea  of  the  Bible  class  was  one  of 
common  study,  comparison  of  results,  and  general  con- 
ference, on  a  basis  of  equal  and  entire  ignorance.  But 
the  woman  who  had  first  suggested  the  mode  of  study, 
and  who  by  parliamentary  courtesy  was  placed  in  the 
chair  as  leader,  speedily  abused  the  position.  The  nov- 
elty of  being  able  to  speak  her  mind  bore  down  every  in- 
stinct of  justice,  till  she  completely  monopolized  the  talk, 
and,  instead  of  seeking  the  views  of  others,  spent  the 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

whole  time  in  expounding  her  own.  The  natural  grace 
and  modesty  of  her  audience  lent  itself  to  this  remorse- 
less usurpation.  The  rights  of  woman  were  ruthlessly 
sacrificed,  freedom  of  speech  was  gradually  abolished,  and 
intellectual  despotism,  routed  from  our  political  institu- 
tions, found  its  final  refuge  and  firna  establishment  in 
this  lay  and  female  chair  of  theology  in  the  capital  of  our 
great  republic.  No  man  was  allowed  so  much  as  to  enter 
the  room  until  he  had  by  contract  forfeited  his  right  of 
discussion  and  promised  to  listen  in  silence,  if  not  sub- 
jection. Fear  of  each  other  was  sufficient  to  hold  the 
women  in  check,  for  they  dreaded  nothing  so  much  as  to 
be  called  on  to  give  an  opinion.  The  woman  in  the  chair 
was,  like  all  tyrants,  the  most  terrified  of  the  whole 
throng,  and  behind  this  autocracy,  untempered  by  assas- 
sination, strove  only  to  conceal  her  desperate  fear  of  being 
questioned,  and  thus  thrown  off  a  track  which  she  needed 
all  the  courage  at  her  command  to  hold.  A  steaming 
samovar  immediately  following  the  Bible  talk  was  the 
signal  for  universal  emancipation.  The  men  were  by  that 
time  so  thoroughly  subjugated  that  they  seldom  had 
spirit  left  for  any  expression  but  of  accord,  or  at  least  ac- 
quiescence. But  the  women  were  simply  braced  for  bat- 
tle, and  clustered  round  the  chairwoman  with  great  heart- 
someness — some  to  dispute  her  positions,  others  to  carry 
the  fight  further,  and  win  even  more  advanced  positions. 
And,  strange  to  say,  the  eldest  mothers  in  Israel,  the  gen- 
tle, sweet-faced,  white-haired  grandmothers,  pressed  fur- 
thest to  the  front.  No  doubt  was  left  of  the  intense  in- 
terest in  theology.  The  silence  of  the  audience  during 
the  talk,  and  the  melodious  but' multifarious  cadences  of 
the  audience  after  the  talk,  were  equally  an  inspiration. 

In  the  beginning,  one  hour  was  announced  as  the  du- 
ration of  the  exercise,  but  at  the  end  of  the  first  hour  the 
audience  met  a  movement  of   dismissal  with  rebellion. 


6  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

They  filibustered  after  the  straightforward  fashion  of 
women.  They  said  :  **It  is  only  half  past  four,  and  we 
will  not  go."  Then  they  sat  still.  They  refused  to 
move.  They  confronted  the  cowardly  chairwoman  with 
a  steady,  detiant  gaze,  till  she  was  fain  to  take  refuge  in 
talking  on.  She  had  her  revenge  by  keeping  no  bounds 
in  subsequent  meetings.  She  ostentatiously  placed  an 
open  watch  on  the  table  at  the  outset,  and  never  con- 
sulted it.  She  begs  to  announce  modestly  to  her  brother 
clergymen  that  her  only  difficulty  was  to  induce  her  con- 
gregation to  disperse  when  the  sermon  was  over;  that 
she  had  to  buy  them  off  with  the  tea  and  cakes  of  the 
Secretary  of  State  ;  and  that,  without  any  extraneous  as- 
sistance of  diversion  from  music,  or  litany,  or  liturgy,  or 
even  passing  round  the  contribution-box,  her  congrega- 
tion sat  for  an  hour  and  a  half  of  solid  sermon,  and 
seemed  always  surprised,  not  to  say  indignant,  that  that 
was  all. 

So  profound  is  human  interest  in  the  quest  of  re- 
ligious truth  ! 

When  the  sun  lighted  upon  Washington  with  fervent 
heat,  the  wise  chairwoman  determined  to  bring  the  Bible 
class  to  a  close  while  yet  their  ardor  seemed  unabated, 
and  the  keenness  of  their  search  for  truth  not  dulled  by 
infelicity  in  its  conduct.  Before,  however,  the  Bible 
class  went  its  summer  ways  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  its 
members  made  a  united  and  formal  request  for  the  manu- 
scrii')t  notes  : 

**We  have  followed  with  deep  interest  during  the 
past  winter  the  results  of  your  studies  and  meditations 
on  several  subjects  bearing  upon  the  spiritual  welfare  of 
humanity.  We  have  continually  felt  a  desire  to  examine 
more  carefully  the  views  that  you  placed  so  forcibly  and 
so  rapidly  before  us,  and  to  possess  them  in  the  form  of 
a  more  permanent  record.    In  order  to  satisfy  this  desire, 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

and  to  enable  us  to  share  with  our  friends  who  could  not 
be  j)resent  the  pleasure  and  instruction  that  you  have 
afforded  us,  may  we  now  beg  of  you  a  copy  of  your  manu- 
script notes  that  we  may  haye  them  printed  ?  " 

The  chairwoman  pleads  no  false  modesty.  Constant- 
ly and  unconsciously  forming  theological  yiews,  she  finds 
nothing  so  satisfactory  as  sharing  them  with  the  whole 
world,  and  thus  gathering  to  her  own  the  illumination 
of  other  minds.  The  Sundays  which  she  spent  with  her 
Bible  class  she  has  no  hesitation  in  saying  were  the  hap- 
piest and  most  inspiring  Sundays  of  her  life.  The  Bible 
class  but  asked  her  to  do  what  only  a  sense  of  propriety 
preyented  her  from  clamoring  for  opportunity  to  do. 
The  Bible  talks  were  prepared  with  the  keenest  interest 
and  enjoyment.  With  equal  interest  and  enjoyment, 
and  with  the  added  stimulus  of  personal  gratification,  as 
many  notes  as  can  be  crowded  into  the  compass  of  this 
book  are  prepared  for  publication. 

It  is,  perhaps,  needless  to  say  that  the  class  are  not 
responsible  for  the  theology.  It  will  be  obseryed  that 
their  letter  is  written  with  discrimination.  It  affirms 
not  assent,  but  *^ interest."  It  desires  not  to  indorse, 
but  to  *^ examine." 

In  compliance  with  this  request,  and  with  the  grate- 
ful consent,  concurrence,  and  co-operation  of  the  chair- 
woman, I  haye  arranged  these  Bible  talks  in  as  condensed 
and  shapely  form  as  may  be,  and  with  the  heartiest  right 
hand  of  fellowship  they  are  hereby  presented 
To  the  Bible  class. 

Gail  Hamilton. 


CHAPTER  I. 

A   PRELIMINAKY   SKIRMISH. 

Thejirst  exercise  of  the  Bible  class  was  conversational.  I  have^ 
there/are,  put  thejirst  chapter  in  conversational  form,  though  no  at- 
tempt is  made  at  a  report  of  the  conversation  ;  nor  is  the  succession  of 
topics  strictly  folloiced.  Some  of  the  themes  treated  in  this  chapter 
were  discussed  at  a  later  period  ;  hut  logically  and  theologically  they 
belong  with  the  other  points  in  the  first  chapter, 

Norfolk.  How  much  of  a  Bible  do  you  think  the 
higher  criticism  would  leave  us  if  it  should  be  allowed  to 
have  its  own  way  ? 

Moxsox.  Every  word,  letter,  iota  of  a  Bible  that 
would  be  as  much  of  a  Thesaurus  to  the  philosopher  as  it 
is  to  the  saint. 

Norfolk.  That  is  decisive,  to  say  the  least. 

Moxso:n".  Are  you  surprised  ? 

Norfolk.  Rather  !  You  have  been  so  occupied  with 
other  matters,  I  assumed,  or  presumed,  you  had  stayed 
where  you  belonged. 

MoN^soN".  That  is,  you  thought  I  was  clamped  so  hard 
into  the  wooden,  plenary,  mechanical  theory  that  I  could 
not  stir. 

Norfolk.  Say,  rather,  I  thought  you  were  so  rooted 
and  grounded  in  the  good  old  orthodox  faith  that  you 
would  resist  these  wild  German  cyclones,  not  to  speak  of 
the  milder  English  imitations. 

MoNSON.  And  you  thought  right.     Tell  me,  now. 


A  PRELIMINARY   SKIRMISH.  9 

how  much  of  a  Bible  do  you  think  would  be  left  us  if  we 
were  to  shut  down  on  the  higher  criticism  ? 

Norfolk.  All  that  has  existed  for  eighteen  hundred 
years,  and  I -am  weak  enough  to  think  that  is  a  good  deal 
of  a  Bible  and  a  pretty  good  sort  of  one,  too — good  enough 
for  me. 

Moi^sox.  You  would  say,  then,  that  all  the  study, 
and  all  the  learning,  and  all  the  devotion  that  have  been 
brought  to  bear  on  the  Bible  for  centuries,  and  which  one 
might  call  a  perpetual  miracle,  goes  for  nothing.  We 
know  no  more  about  the  Bible  than  if  it  had  never  been 
studied. 

Norfolk.  On  the  contrary.  But  the  Bible  is  un- 
changed. We  know  more  about  it ;  but  its  volume,  its 
authority,  are  the  same. 

MoNSO^sr.  Then  there  is  no  difference  between  us. 
We  are  on  precisely  the  same  ground. 

Norfolk.  Not  quite.  That  is,  if  you  give  loose  rein 
to  the  higher  criticism  ;  because  that,  in  effect,  reduces 
the  Bible  to  nothing.  What  with  its  mathematical  and 
historical  errors,  its  tripping  up  of  the  Pentateuch,  and 
its  general  shuffling  of  the  authors,  its  post-exilic  Exodus 
and  its  post-Davidic  Deuteronomy,  its  allegoric  history 
and  its  fabulous  miracle,  you  have  practically  exchanged 
your  Bible  for  a  Mother  Goose's  Melodies.  I  believe 
scholars  have  not  been  wanting  to  argue  learnedly  that 
great  national  policies  have  been  wraj^ped  up  in  Jack  and 
Gill  and  Old  King  Cole. 

MoNSOK.  I  admit  I  do  not  go  into  those  things 
very  extensively.  When  you  hit  me  with  Eeuss  and  Graf, 
and  Strauss  and  Keim,  Harnack,  Hausrath,  Kneuen  and 
Baur,  Volkmar  and  Wellhauser  and  Ewald,  I  am  bowled 
over  quick.  I  do  not  object  to  their  methods  or  their  re- 
sults ;  only  I  do  not  know  them  except  in  a  general  way. 
It  is  your  business  to  know  ;  but  it  is  my  privilege  to 


IQ  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

browse  where  I  like.  I  am  supported  in  my  ignorance 
of  their  work  by  seeing  how  impossible  it  seems  for 
you  professionals  to  agree  as  to  what  they  teach.  The 
higher  critics  and  the  lower  critics  quote  the  same  au- 
thorities to  support  their  own  positions.  Huxley  and  the 
principal  of  King's  College  pull  hairs  as  fiercely  over 
Holtzmann  as  they  do  over  the  Gadarene  pigs,  against 
which  Saint  Thomas  seems  to  have  a  special  spite. 

Norfolk.  Then  pray  tell  me  how  you  can  set  so 
high  a  value  on  such  criticism. 

Mo]S-soK.  Truth  generally  has  to  be  struck  out  by 
hard  blows,  and  then  often  only  in  sparks.  It  is  not  so 
much  the  value  to  the  world  of  any  one  man's  deposit ; 
but  it  is  of  value  that  every  man  should  be  free  to  strike 
for  the  truth  in  his  own  way. 

Norfolk.  Even  if,  in  so  doing,  he  strikes  the  truth 
away  ? 

MoNSON.  Beyond  question  ;  because  truth  held  under 
duress  is  no  truth  at  all — is  only  a  dead  weight.  But 
really,  when  you  get  down  to  it,  I  am  egoist  enough  to 
admit  that  what  I  really  go  by  is  my  own  criticism,  not 
German  or  English. 

Norfolk.  Beg  pardon !  Then  I  am  addressing 
Higher  Criticism  itself. 

MoNSO]sr.  Now,  do  not  be  satirical,  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  old  times.  I  have  had  a  fairly  busy  life,  and  I  am  no 
scholar.  I  really  feel  my  limitations  so  keenly  that  you 
must  not  laugh  at  me.  But  I  Avas  brought  up  on  the 
Bible,  and  I  took  to  it  as  naturally  as  a  duck  to  water. 
Then  I  was  brought  up,  and  I  remain,  a  Congregation- 
alist,  and  there  is  nothing  to  Congregationalism  if  it  is 
not  square  and  open. 

Norfolk.  Then  luill  you  tell  me  why  you  are  dabbling 
in  this  destructive,  disintegrating  manipulation  of  a  book 
which  you  were  taught  to  accept  as  sacred  ? 


A  PRELIMINARY  SKIRMISH.  H 

MoxsoN.  Oh  !  there  you  are  out,  for  the  same  author- 
ity that  taught  me  to  revere  the  Bible  taught  me  to  dig 
into  it.  Did  not  old  Andover,  where  I  was  at  the  start 
and  you  at  the  finish,  lay  down  the  law  to  us  for  all  time 
in  the  *Mnfallible  revelation  which  God  constantly  makes 
of  himself  in  his  works  of  creation,  providence,  and  re- 
demption "  ?  Creation,  I  take  it,  means  science.  Provi- 
dence means  history.  Kedemption  means  the  Bible. 
Now,  then,  orthodoxy  at  its  very  fountain-head,  which 
certainly  you  and  I  ought  to  agree  is  Andover,  sends  us 
forth  on  a  legitimate  quest  for  the  Divine  Being.  You 
take  the  German  scholars. 

NoKFOLK.  No  ;  if  you  please. 

MoKSON".  Well,  then,  you  don't.  But  you  seem  to 
know  about  them. 

Norfolk.  Enough  not  to  accept  them — at  least  in  the 
lump. 

MonsoinT.  Say  your  professors,  then  ;  your  English 
and  American  authorities,  your  orthodox  Germans,  your 
Holtzmanns  and  your  Hermanns,  Strack  and  Dillman, 
and  Zochler  and  Lange.  Very  likely  I  should  do  the 
same  if  I  had  time.  As  it  is,  I  take  the  Bible  itself.  And 
sometimes  I  think  there  is  an  advantage  in  just  taking 
the  Bible  itself — alone. 

Norfolk.  And  is  it  from  the  Bible  you  get  your  as- 
sent to  the  higher  criticism,  to  the  German  analyzing  of 
the  Bible  out  of  existence  ? 

MoNSO^s".  Yes  and  no.  So  far  as  the  Germans  agree 
with  me  I  agree  w^ith  them,  but  my  analysis  gives  the 
Bible  a  higher  place,  a  stronger  hold,  even,  than  Ando- 
ver gave  it  in  the  old  days — for  me. 

Norfolk.  For  instance  ? 

Mois'SON'.  Yes,  indeed.  But  I  shall  bore  you.  The- 
ology is  shop  for  you,  and  you  know  when  to  stop,  but  it 
is  fun  to  me,  and  I  never  get  tired. 


12  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

NoEFOLK.  Go  on  ;  your  theology  will  be  fun  to  me  ! 

MoNSOK.  I  see  and  scorn.  But  open  your  King 
James's  Bible  and  read  the  dedication  :  "  Great  and  mani- 
fold were  the  blessings,  most  dread  sovereign,  which  Al- 
mighty God,  the  Father  of  all  mercies,  bestowed  upon  us 
the  people  of  England,  when  first  he  sent  Your  Majesty's 
Royal  Person  to  rule  and  reign  over  us."  What  do  you, 
a  republican,  understand  by  that  ?  How  did  God  send 
King  James  to  rule  and  reign  over  us  ? 

NoEFOLK.  In  his  Providence.  By  virtue  of  his  being 
the  next  heir  after  Elizabeth.  By  virtue  of  his  being 
born  into  an  order  which  had  reached  a  stage  of  develop- 
ment that  made  heredity,  with  some  modifications,  the 
will  of  the  people. 

MoxsoN.  You  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  Al- 
mighty God  appeared  in  any  manifest  or  miraculous  per- 
sonal manner  to  impose  the  Stuart  on  the  English  people, 
any  more  than  he  has  appeared  in  our  day  to  place  Car- 
not  in  the  French  presidency,  or  Harrison  in  ours  ? 

NoEFOLK.  Certainly  not.  There  is  no  necessity  for 
supposing  anything  of  the  sort.  It  is  a  canon  of  philos- 
ophy not  to  seek  for  unknown  causes  when  known  causes 
sufficiently  explain  the  event. 

MoxsoN.  Now,  then,  you  open  the  Bible  and  read 
that  the  Lord  came  down  to  see  the  city  and  the  tower 
which  the  children  of  men  builded,  and  confounded  their 
language  that  they  might  not  reach  unto  Heaven  as  they 
intended. 

NOEFOLK.   Well ! 

MoNSON.  Well,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Lord  did  not 
come  doion  to  see  the  Tower  of  Babel  any  more  than  he 
came  down  to  see  the  Tower  of  London.  We  have  to  sail 
to  England,  but  the  Lord  is  under  no  such  necessity.  Nor 
did  he  confuse  the  language  of  Shinar  in  any  other  sense 
than  he  is  at  this  moment  constituting  Volapiik. 


A  PRELIMINARY   SKIRMISH.  13 

Norfolk.  And  do  you  fancy  that  you  are  original  in 
that  view  ? 

MoNSOK.  Come,  now  ;  there  is  your  sarcasm  again. 
I  am  not  posing  for  an  exegetical  genius.  Spare  my  real 
modesty. 

Norfolk.  No  ;  but  really,  is  there  anything  unusual 
or  extraordinary  in  supposing  that  when  God  is  spoken  of 
in  the  Bible  as  if  he  were  a  man,  it  is  the  anthropomor- 
phism of  a  child-like  race  and  writer  ? 

MoNSOK.  Child-like  ?  Why,  it  is  not  two  weeks  since 
I  heard  a  reverend  missionary  say  :  ^'  God  means  to  make 
Germany  a  republic."  All  religious  papers  and  pulpits 
teem  with  the  designs  and  plans  and  purposes  of  God 
regarding  politics  and  parties,  and  even  individuals, 
as  definitely  as  if  he  were  retained  on  one  side  or  the 
other. 

Norfolk.  And  a  great  deal  of  it  is  sincere.  People 
that  have  a  profound  faith  in  a  Divine  Being  see  him  in 
everything,  and  of  course  they  must  speak  of  him  and 
even  think  of  him  in  terms  of  human  thought  and  speech. 
God  is  pure  spirit.  Man  is  spirit  embodied.  Pure  spirit 
may  address  itself  to  spirit  embodied,  in  the  terms  of  pure 
spirit.  But  embodied  spirit  can  not  communicate  with 
or  even  concerning  pure  spirit,  except  in  terms  of  spirit 
embodied. 

Mo:n'SON".  Admirable  !  That  is  not  only  reasonable, 
but  suggestive.  Tell  me,  now,  how  you  build  the  Tower 
of  Babel. 

Norfolk.  I  build  it  just  as  my  friend  Selden  builds 
it,  and  as  a  great  many  others  as  judicious  as  the  judicious 
Hooker.  I  mention  Selden  because  I  happen  to  have 
heard  him  talk  it  over  last.  The  story  was  told  in  the 
anthropomorphical  style  which  was  so  well  suited  to  the 
childhood  of  the  race  ;  and  for  that  matter,  as  you  inti- 
mate, we  have  not  outgrown  it  yet. 


14  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Moi^sOK.  Only  we  ratlier  confine  it  to  religious,  not 
to  say  ecclesiastical,  circles. 

Norfolk.  I  imagine  it  was  rather  confined  to  relig- 
ious circles  then.  The  bad  folks  have  not  left  us  much 
account  of  themselves.  Irreligion  is  a  disintegrating, 
not  a  conservative,  element. 

Moxsoif.  Even  the  Tower  of  Babel  gets  its  immortal- 
ity from  those  who  voted  against  it. 

Norfolk.  This  childhood  of  the  race,  or  we  may  say 
this  popular  simplicity  or  poverty  of  the  mind,  makes  God 
real  in  his  personality,  direct  in  his  dealings  with  men. 
The  story  has  nothing  to  do  with  what  we  call  '*  secondary 
causes,"  leaves  ^*  natural  processes  "  entirely  out  of  sight 
for  the  quickest  and  highest  moral  effect,  attributes  every 
event  directly  to  God.  Yet  there  is  open  to  us,  of  a  more 
observant  and  reflective  age,  a  recognition  of  the  delicate 
and  natural  methods  by  which  providential  results  are 
secured.  Undoubtedly  the  story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  is 
but  a  condensed  and  graphic  account  of  the  beginning  of 
national  divergence — it  was  probably  a  premature  and  fool- 
ish attempt  to  plant  a  great  city  of  people  who  had  not 
reached  the  development  in  religion  or  civilization  which 
is  necessary  to  peace  and  prosperity  in  a  great  city  ;  it 
was  the  futile  attempt  at  unification  and  consolidation  of 
a  tribe  that  discerned  and  antagonized  a  tendency  to  sepa- 
ration. It  was  a  picturesque  representation  of  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  human  family  into  nations  and  subsequent 
subdivisions,  and  anticipates  by  three  thousand  years  at 
least  the  brilliant  conclusions  of  Max  Miiller  and  Baron 
Bun  sen. 

Moxso:n".  Eeuss  did  you  say  it  was  who  makes  this 
exposition  ? 

Norfolk.  Reuss  !  you  rascal !  No  !  I  said  it  was 
Selden,  of  Springfield.  When  you  are  meek  you  are  al- 
ways mischievous. 


A   PRELIMINARY   SKIRMISH.  15 

MoNSON".  I  am  innocent  enough  now  ;  but,  in  all  good 
conscience,  if  you  let  in  your  friend  Selden,  of  Springfield, 
you  can  not  rule  out  my  friend  Wright,  of  Oberlin. 

NoRFOiK.  What  has  your  friend  Wright,  of  Oberlin, 
on  his  mind  ? 

M0NS02T.  Nothing  about  the  Tower  of  Babel  that  I 
know  of,  but  he  has  views  on  Sodom. 

Norfolk.  Do  they  upset  the  Tower  of  Babel  ? 

MoNSON".  They  make  a  leaning  tower  of  it,  but  it 
leans  your  way.  Wright  and  Sir  William  Dawson  seem 
to  have  put  their  heads  together  and  destroyed  Sodom 
after  a  novel  and  ingenious  way,  but  natural  fashion. 
The  story  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  is  told  at  considerable 
length  and  with  considerable  definiteness.  The  style  of 
the  narrative  is  familiar.  The  Lord  said  :  '^  Because  the 
cry  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  is  great,  and  because  their 
sin  is  grievous,  I  will  go  down  now  and  see  whether  they 
have  done  altogether  according  to  the  cry  of  it  which  is 
come  unto  me,- and  if  not  I  will  know."  That  is  written 
very  much  as  if  '"the  Lord  "  were  a  careful  and  consci- 
entious editor  of  a  morning  newspaper,  going  out  himself 
instead  of  sending  a  reporter,  in  order  to  get  his  news  on 
the  best  authority.  But  it  was  not  necessary  for  the 
Lord  to  come  doivn  to  investigate  Sodom  any  more  than 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  come  down  to  see  the  Tower 
of  Babel.  Being  omnipresent,  he  surveyed  Sodom  and 
Babel  from  one  place  no  more  than  from  another.  Be- 
ing omniscient,  he  knew  their  sin  without  special  effort. 
But  we,  even  we,  can  not  speak  of  God  without  using 
human  terms — terms  of  limitation.  God  is  transcendent ; 
therefore  we  can  not  inclose  him,  comprehend  him,  fully 
know  him.  But  he  is  immanent ;  therefore  we  can  par- 
tially know  him  and  be  in  touch  with  him. 

These  keen  observers  conclude,  from  the  examination 
of  the  country  about  the  Dead  Sea,  and  the  other  refer- 


16  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

ences  in  the  Bible,  that  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  were  de- 
stroyed by  the  bursting  and  burning  of  an  immense  pent- 
up  reservoir  of  gas  and  petroleum. 

The  valley  of  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea  occupy  a 
portion  of  a  wonderful  crevasse  or  crack  in  the  earth's 
crust,  and  are  subject  to  earthquakes.  The  limestone 
rocks  are  also  strongly  impregnated  with  petroleum  prod- 
ucts. In  short,  it  has  every  appearance  of  being  an  ex- 
hausted "oil-district^';  and  nothing  is  more  probable 
than  the  occurrence  of  such  a  scene  as  that  described  in 
Genesis.  The  *' slime-pits"  mentioned  in  Genesis  as 
characterizing  the  region,  and  the  recently  discovered  evi- 
dence of  the  use  of  bitumen  in  the  construction  of  Jeri- 
cho, give  fresh  reality  to  the  scene  and  the  whole  situa- 
tion ;  while  the  word  which  is  translated  brimstone, 
Wright  thinks  is  more  probably  pitch.  Any  one  who  is 
familiar  with  a  burning  gas- well  is  quite  at  home  in  the 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  description. 

Norfolk.  Surely  that  confirms  rather  than  discredits 
the  Bible  narrative. 

MoKSO]s\  I  think  so  ;  but  of  course  3'ou  observe  that 
you  have  gone  over — horse,  foot,  and  dragoons — to  the 
higher  criticism  ! 

Norfolk.  Of  course  I  see  nothing  of  the  sort.  To 
show  hoiu  God  does  a  thing  is  very  different  from  saying 
that  he  does  not  do  it.  To  explain  the  attendant  cir- 
cumstances of  the  catastrophe  does  not  diminish  its  mirac- 
ulous character,  but  only  brings  to  light  the  secondary 
causes  of  which  the  Lord  made  use  in  bringing  his  de- 
signs to  pass. 

MoNSON".  Yes,  I  think  Wright  says  something  of  that 
kind,  but  it  looks  amazingly  like  hedging ;  because  if 
you  explain  attendant  circumstances  enough  to  show  that 
the  catastrophe  was  natural,  you  not  only  diminish  but 
destroy  its  miraculous  phase.     If  you  bring  to  light  sec- 


A  PRELIMINARY  SKIRMISH.  17 

ondary  causes  sufficient  to  produce  it,  you  do  not  need, 
according  to  your  own  philosophical  canon,  to  seek  any 
further,  and  especially  any  unusual  or  miraculous  cause. 

Norfolk.  But  the  timing  of  it  is  that  in  which  the 
miraculous  element  appears.  Wright  himself  emphati- 
cally recognizes  the  miracle.  He  avers  that  the  Lord  saw 
to  it  that  the  torch  was  applied  at  the  right  time  and 
place,  and  this  was  the  great  miracle.  The  production 
of  such  an  eruption  at  that  juncture  was  by  direct  design 
of  the  Creator,  and  serves  all  the  purpose  of  a  miracle. 
In  fact,  it  was  a  miracle.  The  showers  of  burning  naph- 
tha and  bitumen  which  came  down  upon  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  came  no  less  from  the  Lord's  hands  because 
they  were  first  belched  up  from  the  earth's  depths  by  vol- 
canic forces.  The  forces  of  nature,  as  Wright  says,  are 
powerful  beyond  our  comprehension,  and  are  all  of  them 
in  such  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium  that  it  is  an  easy 
matter  for  the  Creator  to  direct  them  as  he  will.  It  is 
God  who  does  this  when  the  earthquake  destroys  a  city, 
or  a  tornado  devastates  a  hamlet,  or  a  cloud  bursts  upon 
a  mountain-side  and  carries  destruction  all  along  the 
valley. 

Sophia.  I  am  glad  to  see  that  science  does  not  mean 
to  overtask  the  Creator. 

Mo:n'sok.  Obscure. 

Sophia.  You  say  that  Mr.  Wright  thinks  it  is  easy  for 
the  Creator  to  direct  the  forces  of  Nature,  because  they 
are  in  such  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium.  That  is,  I 
suppose,  the  fluidity  of  the  oil  and  the  gas  and  the  lava 
makes  them  manageable,  but,  once  solidified,  they  would 
have  to  stay  where  they  are.  If  the  pot  boils,  Mr. 
Wright's  argument  is,  anything  can  be  done  with  it ; 
but,  if  the  pot  is  not  boiling,  the  Lord  himself  can  not 
make  it  boil  over  ! 

MoNsoi^.  Very  good  theology,  too,  on  right  lines. 

2 


18  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Sophia.  Yes ;  but  on  the  wrong  lines,  if  on  the  old 
or  on  an  old  theological  theory  that  God  is  not  great 
unless  he  is  greater  than  himself ;  as  if  God  were  more 
powerful  in  disorder  than  he  is  in  order  ;  as  if  it  required 
more  Godhood  to  break  a  law  than  to  make  a  law  ;  as  if 
any  one  could  start  a  universe  awhirl  in  regular  curves, 
but  only  a  God  could  whirl  it  all  awry  and  athwart. 

MoNSOK".  And  just  here,  Norfolk,  if  I  were  up  in  my 
Zochler  and  Edersheim  and  the  rest  of  them,  I  should 
say  is  w^here  you  and  Wright  blur  a  little.  You  speak  as 
if  design  were  all  one  with  miracle.  Timing  the  torch 
you  say  was  the  great  miracle.  But  the  torch  must  be 
timed  if  it  is  to  he  a  torch.  An  eruption  at  that  juncture, 
you  say,  was  by  direct  design  of  God.  An  eruption  must 
always  be  at  some  juncture,  and  whenever  it  comes  it  is 
by  design  of  God.  /  do  not  believe  it  breaks  out  of  its 
own  will  at  random,  even  outside  the  Bible.  The  ex- 
plosion, you  say,  came  no  less  from  God's  hands  because 
it  was  belched  up  by  volcanic  forces.  True ;  but  we 
never  call  a  volcano  a  miracle. 

Norfolk.  If,  however,  an  angel  from  heaven  appeared 
to  warn  you  that  a  volcano  was  to  break  out  at  a  certain 
time,  and  that  you  must  rush  to  another  region  to  escape 
it,  and  you  did  rush  and  did  escape,  and  the  explosion 
came  at  the  time  foretold,  would  you  not  call  that  a 
miracle  ? 

MoxsoN.  If  I  were  a  devout  and  sensible,  but  not  a 
scientific,  man — 

Norfolk.  You  need  not  put  an  undisputed  fact  in  a 
hypothetical  form. 

MoKSON.  Thanks  ;  but  I  will  stick  to  my  hypothesis 
— ^living  with  my  family  in  Sodom,  and  if  some  man  who 
was  more  learned  than  I  in  the  nature  of  gas- wells  and 
oil  districts,  and  earth  crevasses  and  naphtha  spurts,  and 
the  general  premonitory  symptoms  of  seismic  or  other 


A  PRELIMINARY   SKIRMISH.  19 

earth  disturbances,  should  conie  into  Sodom  and  warn 
the  people  that  a  convulsion  of  nature  was  threatened, 
and  if  most  of  the  people  did  not  believe  him,  as  people 
are  apt  not — witness  Johnstown — and  if  I  should  think 
there  was  reason  enough  in  his  warnings  to  warrant  me 
in  heeding  them,  and  should  heed  them  and  save  my 
family,  while  my  neighbors  stayed  at  home  and  perished 
— why,  I  think  that  I  should  feel  like  the  English  under 
King  James,  that  God  Almighty  had  sent  his  servant  to 
deliver  me,  I  should  feel  that  the  man  who  had  warned 
me  was  the  angel  of  the  Lord. 

Norfolk.  So  you  abstract  every  miraculous  element 
from  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  make 
it  a  mere  natural  phenomenon  in  all  its  developments. 

MoKSON".  No,  it  is  you  that  do  that — you  and  Selden 
and  Wright — orthodox,  common-sense,  right-seeing  men 
that  you  are.  I  only  claim  my  rights  under  the  law.  If 
you  assume  to  say  that  when  the  Lord  rained  brimstone 
and  fire  out  of  heaven  upon  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  it 
was  probably  pitch,  and  first  came  up  out  of  the  earth  in 
the  natural  order  of  things,  without  any  special  inter- 
position of  divine  power,  I  assume  to  say  that  when  the 
Lord  warned  Lot  of  his  danger  by  two  angels  who  are 
distinctly  and  repeatedly  called  men,  they  were  men. 
At  any  rate,  they  may  have  been  men,  warning  Lot  by 
their  natural  knowledge.  I  have  the  same  right  to  say 
they  were  men  that  you  have  to  say  that  brimstone  was 
pitch  or  that  fire  from  heaven  was  fire  from  earth. 

Norfolk.  You  admit,  then,  that  you  do  rule  out 
every  element  of  the  miraculous. 

MoN^soK.  No,  only  that  I  have  the  right  to  rule  it 
out  without  any  impeachment  of  my  orthodoxy.  Because 
I  am  a  layman  and  a  politician  and  do  not  flout  at,  any 
more  than  I  follow,  the  higher  criticism,  have  I  not  the 
power  to  lead  about  a  little  ^^natural-process"  rule  to 


20  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

measure  the  Scriptures  with  as  well  as  you  and  the  other 
apostles  ? 

NoEFOLK.  Oh  !  you  need  not  square  off  into  fisticuffs. 

MoNSOiT.  Not  a  bit  of  it !  True  orthodoxy  has  no 
need  of  that.  Why,  look  at  Josephus,  a  Jew  true  blue, 
if  eyer  there  was  one.  He  does  not  scruple  to  say  :  '"  God 
cast  a  thunderbolt  upon  Sodom  and  set  it  on  fire."  There 
need  be  no  miracle  in  a  natural  cause,  except  the  peren- 
nial miracle  of  Nature.  Josephus  is  no  more  authority 
than  you  and  I,  but  he  shows  that  the  Jews,  eighteen 
hundred  years  nearer  to  Sodom  than  we,  and  in  direct 
descent  from  Moses  and  his  coadjutors,  fell  instinctively 
into  the  line  of  Nature's  methods. 

Norfolk.  But  I  should  really  like  to  know,  higher 
criticism  apart,  what  is  your  honest  i^rivate  interpretation 
of  the  whole  narrative  ? 

MoNSON".  Very  simple,  and  quite  on  the  lines  where 
you  lead  off.  I  do  not  fight  for  my  interpretation,  but  for 
my  right  to  make  it  without  impeachment  of  my  charac- 
ter ;  not  for  the  truth  of  my  interpretation,  but  for  its 
legitimacy  and  orthodoxy.  I  am  then  inclined  to  think 
that  in  the  Scripture  story  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  we 
have  the  record  of  an  old-world  Johnstown  disaster,  or 
perhaps  the  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  of  the  world 
before  Christ — a  condensed  and  graphic  account  of  the 
destruction  of  a  populous  and  prosperous  plain  where 
luxury  had  engendered  corruption.  That  it  was  destruc- 
tion by  the  forces  of  Nature  we  have  much  trace  to-day. 
The  newspapers  of  that  day  were  full  of  it.  It  made  a 
sensation,  just  as  it  would  if  it  were  the  news  of  our 
morning  paper.  The  record  is  made  by  a  religious  man 
in  the  anthropomorphic  style  which  makes  God  a  real, 
direct,  and  limited  personality — the  only  way  in  which  the 
writer  could  conceive  of  God  at  all.  One  man  escaped 
— a  man  of  large  wealth  and  great  family  connections. 


A  PRELIMINARY   SKIRMISH.  21 

The  story  of  liis  escape  is  told  in  the  same  anthropomor- 
phic, picturesque,  condensed  style.  The  devout  writer 
deals  in  neither  case  with  second  causes,  with  natural 
processes,  but  attributes  everything  directly  to  God.  I 
attribute  everything  not  the  less  to  God,  because,  being 
born  of  a  more  observant  and  reflective  age,  I  recognize 
the  delicate  and  natural  methods  by  which  Lot  may  have 
been  rescued  as  well  as  those  by  which  Sodom  may  have 
been  destroyed. 

Sophia.  When  you  read  that  Lot's  wife,  delaying,  be- 
came a  pillar  of  salt,  you  can  hardly  help  thinking  of  those 
thirty-seven  delaying  Pompeiians,  asphyxiated  by  deadly 
gases,  caught  in  a  shower  and  suffocation  of  ashes,  lying 
this  moment  as  they  have  been  lying  for  eighteen  hundred 
years,  every  spasm  of  pain,  every  contortion  of  the  living 
muscles  preserved  and  presented  in  the  moistened,  hard- 
ened cast— a  pillar  of  ashes.  Just  so  may  Lot's  wife, 
perhaps  lingering,  perhaps  looking  back  with  longing,  or 
love,  or  curiosity,  perhaps  only  weak  and  terrified  and 
unable  to  flee  f  urther— j^^^  so  may  she  have  been  caught, 
overpowered  by  the  rolling  noxious  vapors  and  incrusted 
into  a  form  of  stalagmite,  a  statue  of  crystal  death,  a 
pillar  of  salt !     Poor,  scared  creature  ! 

Norfolk.  If,  along  with  the  story  of  a  disaster  so 
great  that  it  was  immortalized,  there  is  recorded  an 
equally  signal  rescue,  do  you  not  think  that  the  pre- 
sumption in  favor  of  the  truth  of  the  miraculous  rescue 
is  as  strong  as  that  in  favor  of  the  disaster,  which  is 
universally  admitted  to  be  true  ? 

MoNSO^.   Oh  !  now  you  are  mixing  things  ! 

Norfolk.  Well,  then,  analyze  me  and  take  me  in  sin- 
gle file. 

Moi^soiT.  First,  then,  to  take  the  last.  The  misery 
of  our  irrational  Bible  reading  is  that  nothing  is  univer- 
sally admitted  to  be  true.    Insisting  that  the  story  of  Lot 


22  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

should  be  taken  without  atmosphere,  or  antiquity,  poetry, 
or  imagination,  in  an  impossible  and  unliterary  sense,  we 
have  caused  that  many  would  not  take  it  at  all.  It  is 
only  of  late  years  that  personal  and  scientific  investiga- 
tion on  the  spot,  and  the  opening  up  of  our  own  material 
resources,  have  given  independent  evidence  of  historic 
truth  in  the  story,  at  least  to  the  popular  mind— to  my 
mind,  let  us  say.     Your  superior— 

Norfolk.  Oh  !  let  my  superior  mind  alone.  Go  on 
with  your  exposition.  I  never  meddle  too  minutely  with 
my  congregation,  and  I  never  give  them  taffy— at  least 
individually. 

MoifSON".  That  last  was  well  put  in.  I  have  been 
your  congregation,  you  know.  Well,  thanks  to  outsiders, 
rather  than  to  exegetes,  yet  thanks  perhaps  to  clergymen 
most  of  all,  the  Sodom  story  is  getting  into  universal 
credit  by  being  shown  to  be  possible,  even  to  the  reason. 
But  now  as  to  the  miraculous  rescue.  Not  the  writer. 
He  tells  his  story  as  simply  as  the  King  James  transla- 
tors, as  simply  as  my  returned  missionary  placed  Almighty 
God  on  the  Republican  side.  None  of  them  give  sign 
of  relating  a  miracle.  It  is  the  simple,  slight  record  of 
events,  great,  worthy  of  note,  but  not  unnatural.  As  to 
its  being  a  single  rescue  I  am  not  at  all  sure.  The  record 
is  Jewish.  Lot  was  the  only  one  the  writer  cared  about, 
he  being  connected  with  the  great  Jewish  founder,  Abra- 
ham. 

Norfolk.  You  would  not  lay  stress,  nor  I  either,  on 
the  destruction  of  ^*  all  the  inhabitants"  of  the  cities  ? 

Mois'SON".  No  more  than  I  should  include  the  North 
American  Indians  in  the  decree  that  went  out  from  Caesar 
Augustus  that  all  the  world  should  be  taxed. 

Norfolk.  Ah,  well !  I  don't  consider  you  a  hopeless 
case,  though  I  don't  yet  give  you  clean  papers. 

Sophia.  President  White  would  not  give  either  of  you 


A  PRELIMINARY  SKIRMISH.  23 

cleau  papers.  As  far  as  I  can  see,  he  sweeps  Lot's  wife 
clean  out  of  existence. 

NoEroLK.  Ye  take  too  much  upon  you,  ye  sons  of  Levi. 

Sophia.  This  son  of  Levi  does  not  display  an  over- 
grasping  spirit.  He  simply  traces  the  story  back  as  far 
as  he  can,  and  finds  it  ending  in  myth. 

Norfolk.  But  even  myth  has  an  origin. 

Moi^^soN.  And  a  divine  origin. 

Sophia.  That  is  President  White's  position,  appar- 
ently. The  myth  is  the  natural  husk  and  rind  and  shell 
of  our  best  ideas.  He  simply  traces  the  growth  of  this 
one  myth.  Sodom,  modern  Usdum,  has  a  low  range  of 
hills  mainly  made  np  of  salt  rock  which  is  soft  and  fri- 
able, and  by  the  heavy  winter  rains  is  and  has  been  with- 
out doubt  for  unknown  ages  cut  ever  into  new  shapes,  es- 
pecially into  pillars  and  columns,  which  sometimes  bear 
a  resemblance  to  the  human  form. 

Norfolk.  And  he  thinks  the  whole  story  was  made 
lip  to  fit  the  pillars  of  salt  ? 

Sophia.  A  dangerous  stand  to  take,  in  these  days  of 
Egyptian  explorations. 

MoNSOiT.  Yes ;  the  Tel-el- Amarna  tablets  admonish 
the  higher  critic  to  look  well  to  his  steps  before  he  under- 
takes to  destroy  the  Pentateuch,  even  as  history. 

Sophia.  Lot's  wife  will  have  a  sweet  revenge  on  Cor- 
nell University  in  the  day  when  the  diary  of  some  liter- 
ary gentleman  or  some  fashionable  princess  of  Sodom  is 
dug  up  out  of  the  sulphur  rock  of  Usdum,  containing  the 
imperishable  and  indisputable  record  of  the  lady's  visiting 
list. 

Norfolk.  It  would  be  no  more  strange  than  the  gro- 
cery bills  and  real-estate-sales  lists  of  Babylon. 

Sophia.  President  White,  however,  does  not  think 
there  are  any  ruins  to  be  dug  up  under  the  Dead  Sea,  but 
that  the  sea  has  always  been  there. 


24:  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

NoEFOLK.  That  is  an  old  theory. 

Mo2s^sON".  It  is  I  alone  who  am  not  walking  on  thin 
ice.  I  do  not  commit  myself  to  any  one  interpretation, 
but  to  the  right  of  interpretation.  Whether  historically, 
mythically,  poetically,  or  literally  interpreted  is  a  matter 
of  culture,  and  not  a  matter  of  religious  faith.  My  con- 
tention is  only  with  the  man  who  tells  me  that  I  must 
read  it  his  way  or  I  am  not  sound.  I  am  willing  to  give 
wp  any  way  on  evidence,  but  I  am  not  willing  to  give  up 
my  right  of  way. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   REAL   GENESIS. 

Eeadikg  the  Bible  as  we  should  read  any  other  book, 
regardless  of  vvhat  men  in  all  ages  haye  taught  about  the 
Bible,  what  do  we  find  ? 

In  the  beginning — God. 

Whether  ^* beginning"  means  the  time  w^hen  the  uni- 
verse began  as  protoplasm,  or  when  the  earth  began  as 
planet,  or  what  is  protoplasm  or  what  is  universe,  are 
questions  for  science,  not  for  religion.  What  the  Bible 
teaches  is  that.  In  the  beginning — not  force,  or  law,  or 
energy,  or  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms,  but — God 
created  the  heaven  and  the  earth. 

The  story  of  the  creation  is  to  be  read  in  the  broad 
light  and  interpreted  by  the  large  lines  of  common  lan- 
guage and  common  sense. 

God  said.  Let  there  be  light. 

God  said,  I  am  tired  of  kings. 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Genesis  writer 
held  his  words  to  a  more  rigid  meaning  than  Emerson. 
Both  used  a  rhetorical  and  poetic  impersonation  in  order 
to  a  vivid  and  imposing  presentation  of  truth.  No  one 
supposes  that  Emerson  meant  a  miraculous  voice  out  of 
heaven.  No  one  need  suppose  that  the  Genesis  author 
meant  it. 

The  Genesis  of  the  Bible  is  a  pictorial  representation  of 
creation — as  it  might  appear  to  an  earth-dweller  unfolding 


26  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

in  a  swift  panorama.  It  is  creation  in  its  relation  to  man. 
The  object  of  the  great  lights  is  to  give  light  upon  the  earth. 
He  made  the  stars  also.  There  is  no  word  of  the  vast  re- 
volving globes,  centers  of  other  systems,  universes  of  uni- 
verses, in  numbers  and  spaces  inconceivable.  The  writer, 
the  seer,  sees  only  what  they  are  to  us — stars  ;  created,  so 
far  as  the  Genesis  picture  is  concerned,  on  the  day  when 
the  seer  saw  their  dim  twinkling  through  the  dense  but 
clearing  atmosphere  of  earth's  earlier  stages.  There  is  in 
it  a  singular  and,  as  yet,  unexplained  correspondence  be- 
tween this  unfolding  panorama  and  the  conclusions  of 
science  ;  but  if  there  were  no  correspondence  at  all,  the 
import  of  the  Bible  would  be  unaffected.  As  a  pictorial 
representation,  it  teaches,  whether  by  scientific  accuracy 
or  inaccuracy,  the  creation  by  God,  a  creation  of  order, 
of  power  without  effort,  of  dignity,  of  beneficence,  of 
satisfaction.  This  revelation  of  God  appears  on  the  face 
of  it,  and  this  is  the  only  revelation  that  is  vital.  Its 
historical  or  scientific  quality  is  interesting,  but  it  is  a 
question  for  scholars,  not  for  us.  We  have  a  keen  inter- 
est in  the  results  of  their  learning,  but  we  have  not  the 
qualities,  or  the  training,  or  the  traits  which  enable  us  to 
take  part  in  the  search.  Vfe  have  culture  enough  to  see 
that  the  authority  of  the  Bible  is  not  involved  in  the  quest. 
That  there  is  any  trouble  about  the  Garden  of  Eden 
is  because,  though  God  hath  made  man  upright,  man 
hath  sought  out  many  inventions.  The  Lord  God,  be- 
yond doubt,  planted  a  garden  eastward  in  Eden,  just  as 
he  planted  a  forest  westward  in  America,  by  the  forces 
of  nature,  whether  through  man  with  farming-tools,  or 
by  the  winds  of  heaven,  or  the  wings  of  bird  and  bee  and 
butterfly,  scattering  seeds.  Xothing  can  exceed  the  mar- 
vel of  such  planting.  We  have  seen  the  forest  primeval 
and  have  never  lost  ourselves  in  that  wood.  What  is 
there  to  bewilder  us  among  the  trees  of  Eden,  the  Garden 


THE  REAL  GENESIS.  27 

of  God  ?  Josephus,  reared  in  all  the  traditions  of  his 
nation  for  thorough  soundness  of  interpretation,  thought 
it  no  new  departure  to  say,  affirms  it  as  the  simplest  state- 
ment of  natural  fact,  that  **  our  legislator  speaks  some 
things  wisely  but  enigmatically,  and  others  under  a  decent 
allegory,  but  still  ex2)lains  such  things  as  required  a  direct 
explication,  plainly  and  expressly." 

Having  laid  down  this-  general  law  of  interpretation, 
he  specifically  adds  :  *' After  the  seventh  day  was  over, 
Moses  begins  to  talk  philosophically,*'  by  which  we  un- 
derstand not  literally. 

The  story  of  Adam  and  Eve  is  a  parable,  an  allegory, 
by  its  own  showing.  In  any  other  book  than  the  Bible 
a  story  of  animals  talking  would  be  called  a  fable,  would 
be  recognized  as  fable. 

"  I  shall  not  ask  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau 
If  birds  confabulate  or  no. 
'Tis  plain  that  they  were  always  able 
To  hold  discourse  at  least  in  fable  ; 
And  even  the  child  who  knows  no  better 
Than  to  interpret  by  the  letter 
The  story  of  a  cock  and  bull 
Must  have  a  most  uncommon  skull." 

When  we  read  in  a  story-book,  "The  lion  said  to  the 
mouse,"  we  perceive  at  once  that  it  is  a  fable.  When  we 
read  in  the  Bible,  "The  serpent  said  unto  the  woman," 
we  call  it  history.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  should. 
There  is  no  more  reason  to  suppose  that  snakes  talk  in 
the  Bible  than  that  they  talk  in  other  literature.  There 
is  even  less  reason,  for  the  Bible  itself  in  other  places 
speaks  of  the  serpent  as  not  a  serpent,  but  an  evil  spirit, 
showing  that  the  Bible  writers  considered  it  allegory. 

To  say  that  it  is  fable  or  allegory  is  not  to  say  that  it 
is  false.  The  very  point  and  pith  of  fable  is  truth.  An 
allegory  has  no  life  but  in  its  truth.     Was  it  Lacordaire 


28  A  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

who  said  ''a  myth  is  a  fact  transfigured  by  an  idea"  ? 
Is  it  wise — is  it  the  only  real  orthodoxy — is  it  orthodoxy 
at  all — is  it  not  rather  the  worst  heresy — to  insist  upon  the 
fact  without  the  idea  ?  Is  a  fact  more  holy — more  im- 
posing— when  it  stands  alone,  unclassified,  unmeaning, 
and  in  its  nakedness  absurd,  than  when  it  stands  in  its 
relations,  invested  with  its  associations,  inspired  with  its 
idea,  and  lifted  thus  into  the  sphere  of  moral  and  spiritual 
life? 

Out  of  the  ground  made  the  Lord  God  to  grow  every 
tree  that  is  2:)leasant  to  the  sight  and  good  for  food  ;  the 
tree  of  life  also  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  and  the  tree 
of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  The  mixture  of  literal 
and  allegorical  language  is  unquestionable.  Who  ever 
carried  to  market  a  basket  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life  ? 
Who  ever  heard  of  a  knowledge-of-good-and-evil  orchard  ? 
The  literal  interpretation  never  would  have  been  thought 
of  any  more  than  in  the  lion-and-mouse  fables  but  for  the 
exigences  of  theology.  Men  constructed  fables  about 
theology,  and  then  supported  them  with  the  fables  of  the 
Bible  turned  into  literal  statements  ;  and  this  in  full  view 
of  the  constant  Bible  use  of  the  phrase  in  a  figurative 
sense  :  She  [wisdom]  is  a  tree  of  life  to  them  that  lay 
hold  upon  her.  The  fruit  of  the  righteous  is  a  tree  of 
life.  When  the  desire  cometh  it  is  a  tree  of  life.  A 
wholesome  tongue  is  a  tree  of  life.  To  him  that  over- 
cometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life  which  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  paradise  of  God.  In  the  midst  of  the 
street  of  it,  and  on  either  side  of  the  river,  was  there  the 
tree  of  life  which  bore  twelve  manner  of  fruits,  and  yield- 
ed her  fruit  every  month  ;  and  the  leaves  of  the  tree  were 
for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  Blessed  are  they  that  do 
his  commandments,  that  they  may  have  right  to  the  tree 
of  life.  And  whosoever  will,  let  him  take  the  water  of  life 
freelv. 


THE  REAL   GENESIS.  29 

The  allegory  is  solemn  and  sublime.  All  may  read  its 
truth  of  divine  sovereignty,  of  human  responsibility,  of 
inherent  penalty.  Its  specific  truths  we  as  yet  only  infer 
or  even  conjecture.  It  may  be  the  parable  of  man's  first 
investiture  with  a  moral  nature,  the  last  stage  in  his  evo- 
lution from  animal  innocence  to  the  human  possibility  of 
guilt  and  achievement  of  holiness.  Adam,  Edom,  red 
earth,  may  be  an  epitome  of  the  race  ;  the  story  of  the  fall 
of  one  man  enshrining  the  rise  of  all  men. 

It  is  possible  that  the  trail  of  the  serpent  in  the  Gar- 
den of  Eden  m^ay  still  be  seen  in  the  mysterious  mounds 
of  the  West.  Professor  Putnam  considers  the  great  ser- 
pent mound  to  be  a  relic  of  the  serpent  worship  which 
prevailed  throughout  the  world  thousands  of  years  ago. 
We  see  its  symbolism  sometimes  still  in  our  rings  and 
bracelets,  lithe  and  clinging  with  serpentine  gold— type 
of  wisdom,  type  of  eternity.  The  serpentine  mounds 
still  to  be  found  in  various  parts  of  the  world  were  temples 
of  the  serpent  worship.  AVithin  the  coil  of  the  tail  was 
built  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  Why  may  it  not  be  that  the 
serpent  of  the  story  of  Eden  was  the  abstract  personified 
typical  serpent  of  the  early  world's  worship,  the  great 
dragon,  Satan,  just  disappearing,  perhaps  just  beginning 
to  disappear,  before  the  clearer  revelation  of  God  to  a 
more  highly  developed  man  ?  ''It  shall  bruise  thy  head, 
and  thou  shalt  bruise  his  heel,"  would  thus  receive  a 
fuller  meaning.  The  new  direct  God-worship  would  have 
a  hard  fight  with  the  old  serpent-worship  ;  but  after  the 
fight— nay,  in  the  fight— it  would  prevail. 

It  has  prevailed.  It  has  left  only  here  and  there  a 
mark,  a  myth,  a  mystery— a  weird,  colossal  serpent  mound 
on  the  grassy  cliffs  of  Ohio. 

But  the  scientific  historic  explanation,  correspondence 
or  divergence,  is  not  a  matter  of  orthodoxy,  or  heterodoxy, 
or  heresy.    It  is  a  matter  of  the  utmost  interest ;  but  it  is 


30  A  WASHINGTO:^  BIBLE   CLASS. 

for  learning  to  decide.  The  essential  point  is  clear  to 
all  :  God's  sovereignty,  man's  responsibility,  inherent 
penalty,  eternal  righteousness.  No  theological  school,  or 
synod,  or  council,  or  individual  can  rightfully  lay  upon 
the  conscience  the  interpretation  of  the  creation  of  Gene- 
sis. But  is  not  this  rationalism  ?  I  trust  it  is  ;  and  per- 
haps, before  we  go  any  further,  it  would  be  well  to  try  if 
we  may  not  lay  that  ghost. 

AVhat  is  rationalism  ?  The  bugbear  of  the  churches 
for  one  thing.  Only  a  bugbear  so  far  as  the  churches  are 
alarmed.  Rationalism  is  reasonvngism.  No  deeper  insult 
can  be  put  upon  the  Bible  than  to  say  that  it  can  not 
stand  reasoning. 

Wlien  we  speak,  as  we  often  do  speak,  of  the  contro- 
versy between  the  rationalist  and  the  orthodox,  we  employ 
what  the  logicians  term  tha  fallacy  of  division.  There  is 
no  logical  classification  into  orthodox  and  rationalist.  I 
may  be  less  than  the  least  of  the  orthodox,  but  all  there 
is  of  me  is  orthodox.  I  may  have  been  endowed  by  Heaven 
with  but  a  feeble  spark  of  reason,  but  all  that  heaven  has 
given  me  of  reason  I  will  use  upon  theology  ;  therefore  I 
am  always  and  wholly  a  rationalist. 

In  the  discussion  regarding  revision,  one  man  con- 
tended that  it  is  important  to  put  the  brakes  on  any 
tendency  to  rationalism  proper  when  it  shows  itself  in 
our  American  life,  as,  unchecked,  it  will  rapidly  develop 
and  prove  in  the  end  fatal  to  evangelical  religion  among 
us  as  it  did  in  Germany  prior  to  Schleiermacher. 

It  would  be  well  to  learn  who  has  authority  to  put  on 
the  brakes.  The  attempt  would  be  more  likely  to  throw 
off  the  brakeman  than  to  slow  the  train  ! 

To  say  that  rationalism  is  fatal  to  evangelical  religion  is 
to  say  that  evangelical  religion  can  exist  only  among  idiots. 

Was  Canon  Kingsley  an  idiot  ?  He  was  assuredly  a 
rationalist.     Hear  what  the  most  straitest  sect  of  New 


TKE   REAL   GENESIS.  31 

England  Puritanism,  in  old  Andover  and  Princeton,  says 
of  him  : 

**  Kingsley's  theology  was  never  very  coherent,  consist- 
ent, or  orthodox.  He  was  greatly  influenced  by  Maurice, 
whom  he  revered  as  his  ^  prophet ; '  he  was  a  leader  of  the 
Broad  Church  ;  and  went  farthest  from  the  straight  line 
in  his  inferential  ^restorationism,'  in  eschatology.  Still 
his  influence  was  hurtful  rather  in  the  encouragement  of 
others  to  depart  from  the  truth  than  in  his  own  distinct 
teachings  ;  for  he  was  a  strong  upholder  of  the  Athanasian 
creed,  and  was  reverent,  though  somewhat  free,,  in  his 
treatment  of  the  Scriptures.  .  .  .  But  few  will  be  found 
who  were  such  a  tremendous  force  in  their  day  for  good. 
He  had  much  of  the  prophet  in  his  make-up  and  com- 
mission. Dean  Stanley  says,  in  his  funeral  sermon  : 
*  His  life  and  conversation,  as  he  walked  among  ordinary 
men,  were  often  as  of  a  waker  among  drowsy  sleepers.' 
And  there  has  been  no  more  ^pure  and  perfect  knight,' 
none  more  dedicated  to  what  seemed  to  him  the  right, 
who  wore  his  heart  on  his  sleeve  and  his  sword  at  the 
service  of  the  weak,  than  he  who  lies  restfully  amid  the 
grass,  the  wild  flowers,  and  the  tall  fir  trees  of  the  se- 
cluded parish  church  where  he  loved  so  much  and  made 
so  many  love  him." 

Let  orthodoxy  reconcile  the  evasive,  elusive,  theoreti- 
cal, inferential  ^Miurtful  influence"  of  his  rationalism 
with  the  ^"'tremendous  force  for  good,"  the  pure  and  per- 
fect character,  the  righteousness  and  the  chivalry  which 
it  left,  if  it  did  not  make,  in  his  character. 

Was  Bunsen  an  idiot  ?  Hear  what  the  same  high 
conservative  authority  says  of  him:  ^^We  can  not  and 
care  not  to  recapitulate  Bunsen's  sad  lapses  into  rational- 
ism in  this  and  other  works,  such  as  his  abandonment  of 
prophecy,  and  even  his  denial  of  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus.     And  yet,  strange  to  say,  he  not  only  opposed  in- 


32  A  "WASniNGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

tensely  the  rationalism  of  Baur,  Feuerbach,  and  the 
Tiibingen  school,  not  to  speak  of  Strauss,  but  he  lived  in 
the  Scriptures,  and  clung  to  them  as  the  object  of  su- 
premest  love  and  the  only  source  of  spiritual  life.  The 
fact  is  that  Bud  sen  was  an  enigma,  or,  perhaps  we  might 
say,  a  theological  *Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,'  with  a 
rationalistic  head  and  an  eyangelical  heart." 

Why,  then,  rationalism  is  not  fatal  to  evangelical  re- 
ligion even  in  Germany  !     But  listen  again  : 

*^  No  one  has  questioned  the  reality  and  depth  of  his 
piety.  Dr.  McCosh  gives  this  emphatic  testimony:  *I 
am  able  to  say,  what  I  believe  I  can  say  of  no  other  with 
whom  I  had  so  much  intercourse,  that  we  never  conversed 
during  those  five  days  for  ten  minutes  at  a  time  without 
his  returning,  however  far  he  might  be  off,  to  his  Bible 
and  his  Saviour,  as  the  objects  which  were  the  dearest  to 
him.  .  .  . 

^^Bunsen  was  absolutely  free  from  all  concealment. 
In  the  most  worldly  and  unbelieving  circles,  as  among 
the  most  intimate  and  like-minded,  he  was  the  same  out- 
spoken Christian.  So  great  was  his  simplicity  and  trans- 
parency of  character,  that  the  Russian  Ambassador  said 
to  him  :  '  Continue  to  keep  your  child-heart ;  you  are 
the  only  child  of  fifty  years  old  I  ever  saw.'  Everywhere 
Bunsen  was  the  same  natural,  genial,  high-minded  man. 
His  presence  was  a  burst  of  sunshine.  .  .  . 

''  Bunsen's  was  one  of  the  notable  death-beds  of  Chris- 
tian history,  not  only  for  the  beauty  of  human  love,  but 
pre-eminently  for  a  triumphant  and  unwavering  faith 
and  a  rapturous  love  of  Christ,  which  would  have  crowned 
the  life  of  any  saint  that  ever  lived.  To  sum  up  his 
heart-orthodoxy,  let  me  add  one  of  his  latest  sayings  in  a 
letter  :  *  The  Lord  taught  me  early  that  I  am  a  sinner, 
and  that  only  in  Christ  I  can  become  well-pleasing  to 
God  and  a  child  of  God.' 


THE  REAL  GENESIS.  33 

'^  ^  Few  souls  have  lived  so  brightly  and  serenely,  so  far 
above  the  meanness  of  selfish  aims  and  petty  jealousies ' ; 
and  so  long  as  faith,  hope,  and  love  take  their  place 
among  the  things  that  can  not  be  shaken,  his  immortality 
is  assured." 

Was  Neander's  rationalism  fatal  to  his  religion  ?  The 
same  evangelical  leader  says  :  ^'I  regret  to  be  obliged  to 
confess  that,  like  Bunsen,  he  was  pious  in  spite  of  decided 
weakness  of  theological  opinion.  He  never  lost  the  early 
influence  of  Schleiermacher.  His  views  of  the  inspira- 
tion and  authority  of  the  Scriptures — even  of  parts  of  the 
Gospels  as  well  as  the  Apocalypse  and  some  of  the  Epistles 
— are  very  latitudinarian,  if  not  loose." 

But  what  of  his  character  and  his  influence  ? 

'^Imagine  a  bowed  and  slender  man,  with  a  decidedly 
Jewish  physiognomy,  deep-set  but  keen  eyes,  high  and 
broad  forehead  almost  covered  by  thick  black  hair,  and 
eyebrows  like  a  shaggy  and  jutting  roof.  He  wears  a 
white  cravat,  as  often  tied  on  the  side  or  back  of  his  neck 
as  at  the  front,  his  long  frock-coat  and  all  his  clothes 
carrying  out  the  Israelitish  impression  of  his  appearance 
after  the  Chatham  Street  type  ;  an  old-fashioned  hat  set 
aslant  on  the  back  of  his  head,  and  jack-boots  reaching 
above  the  knees.  And  yet,  wherever  he  appears  on  the 
streets,  he  is  greeted  by  all  sorts  of  people  with  reverence 
and  affection.  Many  stories,  more  or  less  authenticated, 
are  told  of  his  uncouthness  and  absent-mindedness — as, 
for  instance,  his  getting  his  foot  into  the  gutter  and  walk- 
ing thus  all  the  way  homxe,  and  then  sending  in  haste  to 
a  physician  to  consult  about  his  supposed  lameness.  He 
would  have  to  be  guided,  both  in  going  to  and  returning 
from  his  lecture-room,  especially  if  he  had  changed  his 
residence  ;  and  he  was  apt  to  continue  writing  upon  his 
desk  after  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  paper. 

'*  His  attitudes  and  behavior  in  the  lecture-room  were 

3 


34:  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

still  more  grotesque  and  hizarre.  He  shot  in  sideways 
and  with  half-closed  eyes,  and,  on  taking  his  seat,  began 
to  fumble  for  a  goose-quill,  without  which  he  could  not 
proceed ;  and  if  it  gave  out,  through  his  twistings  and 
tearings,  another  had  to  be  furnished  or  he  would  be  quite 
disconcerted.  He  stood,  but  constantly  changed  the 
position  of  his  feet,  even  swinging  one  of  them  around 
till  it  struck  the  wall  behind  him. 

"This  description  is  not  exaggerated,  but  attested  by 
many  of  his  pupils  "  [one  of  whom  was  a  member  of  the 
Bible  class  and  of  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  certified  the 
correctness  of  the  presentation],  *'  who,  however  dazed  at 
first,  came  to  regard  it  with  gravity,  and  even  with  rev- 
erence, as  a  part  of  the  greatness  and  almost  superhuman 
inspiration  of  the  man.  JSTo  one  thought  of  laughing  at 
what,  after  all,  added  to  the  sense  of  dignity,  enthusiasm, 
and  unworldly  purity  of  this  *  Israelite  indeed,  in  whom 
was  no  guile.'  They  all  loved  him,  and  on  every  birth- 
day marched  in  torchlight  pi-ocession  through  the  city 
and  stopped  at  his  house  in  order  to  address  him  and  re- 
ceive his  reply. 

**His  conversion  from  Judaism  was  a  slow  process, 
and  self -wrought  out  under  the  leading  and  enlightening 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  seems,  like  Augustine  and  others, 
to  have  received  the  first  impulse  from  Plato,  both  away 
from  his  old  faith  and  on  toward  higher  ideals.  Schleier- 
macher  also,  *the  German  Plato,'  had  a  great  influence 
upon  his  development,  and,  in  fact,  stamped  the  charac- 
ter of  his  theology  to  a  large  extent.  On  his  last  birth- 
day he  spoke  in  a  voice  trembling  with  emotion,  calling 
himself  *only  a  poor  sinner,'  and  exclaiming  with  St. 
Augustine,  *  0  Divine  Love,  I  have  not  loved  Thee  strong- 
ly, deeply,  warmly  enough  ! '  This  gives  us  a  good  idea 
of  Neander's  character — its  humility,  simplicity,  love,  and 
unworldly  innocence  and  integrity.     Says    one  of   his 


THE  REAL   GENESIS.  35 

pupils,  Dr.  Schaff  :  '  To  understand  and  admire  in  its 
true  living  force  that  great  word  of  the  Redeemer,  "  Ex- 
cept ye  become  as  little  children  ye  shall  not  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  it  was  only  necessary  to  become 
acquainted  with  Neander.' 

*'  Bishop  Huntington  says  :  ^Few  eyes  have  seen  deeper 
into  God's  majestic  disclosures  than  those  which  looked 
out  from  under  the  dark  Hebrew  brow  of  the  Christian 
historian,  Neander.  Yet  this  was  the  motto  which  he 
kept  inscribed  on  his  study  wall,  making  his  library  to 
open  upward  into  heaven  :  **  Now  we  see  through  a  glass 
darkly,  but  then  face  to  face  ! "  He  died  as  he  had  lived, 
in  the  midst  of  his  work  and  in  perfect  calmness  of  sub- 
mission to  the  voice  of  God.  On  Sunday,  the  8th  of 
July,  he  insisted  upon  lecturing,  though  so  weak  as  to  lose 
his  voice  several  times  and  to  be  unable  to  descend  from 
the  rostrum  and  get  home  without  being  carried  by  his 
students.  Yet  in  the  afternoon  he  rallied,  and  managed 
to  dictate  for  three  hours  the  closing  pages  of  his  Church 
History.  He  never  rose  again  from  his  bed  ;  yet  on  Sat- 
urday afternoon  he  dictated  that  fine  chapter  on  the  Ger- 
man mystics  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
who  were  called  the  *^  Friends  of  God."  Then,  in  a 
dreamy  state  of  mind,  he  said  to  his  sister,  '^  I  am  weary, 
let  us  go  home"  ;  and  immediately  afterward,  with  ten- 
derness and  affection  to  his  kind  attendant,  '*  Good- 
night," he  fell  gently  asleep  and  awoke  to  look  face  to 
face  upon  the  Christ  who  led  him  out  of  darkness  into 
the  light  where  we  need  no  glass  and  are  conscious  of  no 
dimness.'  " 

Professor  Delitzsch  has  just  died  ;  was  rationalism  fatal 
to  his  evangelical  piety  ?  The  Rev.  Dr.  Curtiss,  Pro- 
fessor of  Hebrew  in  the  Chicago  Theological  Seminary, 
was  his  admiring  pupil  and  sympathetic  friend.  He 
adm.its  that  some  of  Professor  Delitzsch's  interpretations 


36  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

were  fanciful,  but  says  ^^he  was  one  of  the  few  who  knew 
how  to  sympathize  with  the  ancient  prophets  and  psalm- 
ists of  Israel,  and  hence  how  to  render  their  thoughts  into 
modern  language. 

''  He  suffered  much  from  radical  critics  who  did  not 
know  how  anxious  he  was  to  present  no  views  which  he 
thought  would  be  detrimental  to  the  Church  of  Christ. 
There  was  at  times  in  his  mind  a  struggle,  which  came 
from  the  conviction  that  certain  critical  views  were  true, 
and  from  his  fear  that  the  frank  expression  of  these  views 
might  be  a  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  some  foreign 
missionary  or  some  of  his  former  pui)ils.  While  he  had 
a  mind  which  was  hospitable  for  all  phases  of  truth,  he 
was  cautious  and  considerate  in  its  expression  from  prin- 
ciple, lie  sometimes  made  a  remark  like  this,  *  Another 
concession  made  for  the  sake  of  the  truth.'  In  his  later 
years,  while  he  was  an  earnest  advocate  of  evangelical 
theology,  his  critical  views,  as  is  well  known,  were  much 
modified  by  the  investigations  of  the  modern  scliool. 

''He  was  a  man  of  devotional  spirit  and  of  devout 
piety.  The  cause  of  evangelical  religion  lay  very  near 
his  heart.  His  love  for  Israel  was  hardly  exceeded  by 
that  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  he  devoted  about  fifty 
years  to  the  preparation  and  perfection  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  Hebrew,  reckoning  from  the  time  when  the  pur- 
pose of  preparing  such  a  translation  first  entered  his 
mind. 

"While  he  was  a  strict  adherent  of  the  Lutheran 
Church,  he  firmly  believed  that  '  if  any  man  is  in  Christ 
he  is  a  new  creature.'  I  heard  him  remark  one  morning, 
after  listening  to  the  discourse  of  one  of  the  younger  pro- 
fessors at  the  University  Church  :  'That  man  does  not 
know  anything  about  true  religion.  He  has  never  been 
converted.' 

"Thus  a  prince  and  a  father  in  Israel  has  left  us,  and 


THE  REAL   GENESIS.  37 

we  must  wait  long  before  we  see  any  one  worthy  to  take 
his  place." 

Is  it  that  these  men  did  not  live  ^^  prior  to  Schleier- 
macher"  ?  But  neither  do  we.  If  there  is  any  potency 
in  Schleiermacher,  imparting  vitality  to  a  rationalism 
which  prior  to  liim  contained  only  the  seeds  of  death, 
we  also  are  heirs  to  that  potency,  and  have  no  relation 
whatever  to  any  preceding  rationalism  which  bore  only 
evil  fruits. 

Looking  at  these  men,  at  their  consecrated  life,  at 
their  peaceful  death,  at  their  holy  memory,  we.  should 
say  that  rationalism,  so  far  from  rending  away  in  agony 
the  Christ  from  our  view,  rather  rends  away  the  clouds 
that  hide  the  Christ,  and  permits  us  to  look  upon  that 
benign  and  blessed  face  undimmed. 

''I  am  proud  of  the  fact,"  says  an  eminent  Methodist 
leader,  "that  the  scholarship  of  the  churches  is  not  wholly 
in  the  grip  of  the  rationalists.  There  is  not  a  Methodist 
institution,  or  a  Methodist  periodical,  or,  so  far  as  I  know, 
a  single  Methodist  minister,  who  has  joined  the  higher 
critics  in  their  destructive  historical  and  literary  work, 
notwithstanding  Mr.  Faulkner,  in  his  effort  to  carry  the 
charge  of  rationalism  in  the  church,  assumed  that  many 
Methodist  clergymen  are  in  the  bonds  of  that  great 
iniquity." 

If  the  scholarship  of  the  churches  is  not  amenable  to 
reason,  it  is  in  the  bonds  of  a  great  imbecility.  If  the 
Methodist  Church  has  no  tendency  to  bring  its  theology 
to  the  bar  of  reason,  it  is  a  far  more  effete  institution 
than  its  vigorous  condition  would  indicate.  Put  down 
the  brakes  on  reason  ?  There  is  but  one  way  to  do  it. 
Burn  the  reasoner  !  It  is  not  the  Methodist  Church 
which  is  credited  with  that  monopoly.  It  is  too  late  for 
the  Methodist  Church  to  introduce  it.  Even  Bruno  does 
not  stay  burned.     The  oxygen  of  the  nineteenth  century 


38  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

is  constantly  reillumining  him.  So  magnificently  have 
our  fathers  wrought — our  orthodox,  iron-bound  fathers — 
that  they  have  freed  our  reason  to  perfect  liberty. 

^^If  they  should  revise  rationalism  into  the  Confes- 
sion," say  the  Presbyterian  watchmen,  "there  will  be 
an  interminable  war  until  one  party  or  the  other  is  cast 
out." 

On  the  contrary,  when  rationalism  is  revised  into  the 
Confession  there  will  be  everlasting  peace,  and  never  till 
then.  All  the  war  comes  because  reason  is  outside  and 
orthodoxy  inside.  Until  they  are  at  one  inside — that  is, 
until  orthodoxy  is  perfectly  reasonable — this  conflict  is 
irrepressible. 

"  Presbyterians,  if  they  are  anything,  are  intelligent 
and  pious.  They  know  what  they  believe,  because  they 
have  committed  to  memory  the  Shorter  Catechism.  They 
know  why  they  believe,  because  they  have  studied  their 
Bibles." 

It  might  be  supposed  that  the  more  decorous  and 
deferential  way  would  be  to  learn  from  the  Bible  what 
to  believe  and  from  the  Catechism  why  you  believe.  But 
pious  and  intelligent  Presbyterians  are  too  wise  in  their 
generation  to  fancy  for  a  moment  that  the  Westminster 
Catechism  can  explain  anything  to  anybody.  It  is  very 
clever  in  them  to  commit  the  Catechism  to  memory  and 
the  Bible  to  reason. 

But,  say  the  Literalists,  rationalism  takes  away  our 
infallible  Bible  and  puts  reason  to  judge  revelation. 

What  is  an  infallible  Bible  ?  The  multiplication-table 
is  infallible,  but  is  of  no  use  to  us  until  we  learn  it.  If 
we  know  nothing  of  numbers  and  can  not  read  figures, 
the  multiplication-table  might  as  well  be  fallible  so  far 
as  we  are  concerned.  We  must  put  our  memory  to  the 
multiplication-table  and  our  reason  to  applying  it  before 
we  get  any  good  out  of  it. 


THE  REAL  GENESIS.  39 

So  even  an  infallible  Bible  is  practically  fallible  so 
long  as  the  minds  that  use  it  are  fallible.  Rationalists  put 
reason  to  judge  revelation  ?  What  ought  to  judge  revela- 
tion ?  Revelation  is  addressed  to  reason.  It  is  God  who 
puts  reason  to  judge  revelation.  There  is  no  revelation 
where  there  is  no  reason.  Cats  and  dogs,  birds  and  fishes, 
have  no  revelation  because  they  have  not  reason.  God 
reveals  himself  and  can  reveal  himself  only  through  and 
to  the  reason  of  man,  and  he  himself  constantly  appeals 
to  man  to  use  his  reason  in  judging  God.  How  can  any 
man  upbraid  his  fellow-man  for  doing  what  God  con- 
stantly in  the  Bible  exhorts,  and  outside  the  Bible  stimu- 
lates, man  to  do  ! 

Let  us  apply  rationalism  and  non-rationalism  to  the  in- 
fallible Bible  in  the  story  of  Abram.  Abram  had  several 
wives.  He  drove  away  one  wife  and  her  son — his  son — to 
die  in  the  wilderness.  He  was  about  to  murder  another 
son.  The  tale  is  interesting,  but  what  of  it,  if  we  are  not 
to  use  reason  ?     It  is  simply  a  story  like  any  fairy  tale. 

Oh,  no  !  says  the  anti-rationalist,  the  irrationalist. 
These  things  happened  for  ensamples,  as  Paul  says,  and 
they  are  written  for  our  admonition,  upon  whom  the 
ends  of  the  world  are  come. 

But  that  is  rationalism  !  Paul,  then,  is  a  rationalist. 
He  is  not  contented  with  the  infallible  Genesis,  but  adds 
a  comment,  a  moral,  an  interpretation  of  his  own.  He 
puts  his  reason  to  judge  Moses's  revelation.  He  is  not 
content  with  the  simple  narrative  as  Moses  gave  it,  but 
invests  the  narrative  with  a  Pauline  motive.  And  what 
is  the  result  ?  Under  his  lead,  taking  Abram  for  an  en- 
sample,  we  learn  that  polygamy  is  legal  and  righteous, 
and  the  Mormons  are  true  saints,  as  they  call  themselves, 
and  those  who  oppose  the  Mormons  are  fighting  against 
God.  As  Abraham  was  obedient  to  sacrifice  his  only  son. 
Freeman  of  Massachusetts  must  have  been  ridit  in  kill- 


40  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

ing  his  little  daughter  as  a  sacrifice  to  God,  and  the  Mas- 
sachusetts law  was  wrong  in  shutting  him  into  the  Dan- 
yers  lunatic  asylum. 

No,  continues  the  anti-rationalist,  still  dissatisfied 
with  our  reasoning,  and  demanding  more.  The  plural- 
ity of  wives  and  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  were  due  to  the  im- 
perfect light  of  those  barbarous  early  days.  We  are  not 
to  imitate  Abraham  in  those  points.  They  were  not  the 
ones  given  for  our  ensample.  It  is  Abram's  faith  that 
we  are  to  follow.  He  was  ready  to  do  what  God  told 
him  to  do,  even  to  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  son.  The  les- 
son to  us  is  of  equally  prompt  obedience.  The  things 
Abraham  did  would  be  wrong  in  our  day,  but  his  faith 
in  God,  his  entire  submission,  were  counted  to  him  for 
righteousness. 

Here  is  a  long  process  of  rationalism.  The  conserva- 
tives resort  to  it  because  without  it  the  story  of  Abram 
is  but  nonsense  verses.  They  go  on  until  rationalism 
takes  them  to  a  stopping -place  which  satisfies  tlicm 
— that  is,  to  a  point  where  we  can  be  ordered  to  copy 
Abram's  faith  and  not  his  crimes,  or  what  would  now  be 
crimes.  There  they  choose  to  stop,  and  there  they  bid 
every  one  else  stop.  But  having  gone  so  far  in  their 
company,  who  shall  forbid  us  to  go  a  step  further  on 
our  own  account,  and  point  out  that  Abram's  faith  is 
summoned  by  Paul  to  show  the  earthly  origin  of  the 
Mosaic  law  ?  The  Mosaic  law  was  not  only  to  be  de- 
stroyed for  the  future.  We  see  by  Abraham  that  it  vras 
not  eternal  in  the  past,  for  the  apostle  says  that  Abra- 
ham was  without  law.  He  had  nothing  but  faith  in 
God.  The  law  had  not  been  established  in  his  day,  so  he 
was  justified,  gained  his  reputation,  obtained  all  his 
character,  without  the  law  of  Moses.  God  is  divine, 
eternal,  and  faith  in  him  is  always  a  saving  faith.  The 
law  of  Moses  was  temporary,  a  mere  human  device,  to  be 


THE   REAL   GENESIS.  41 

outgrown  and  cast  off.  That  is  Paul's  argument,  and  it 
is  our  argument ;  but  it  is  rationalism  in  Paul  just  as 
much  as  in  us.  Will  any  orthodox  Methodist,  or  Pres- 
byterian, or  Episcopalian  think  it  incumbent  on  him  to 
put  the  brakes  on  this  tendency  in  Paul  ?  But  if  ration- 
alism is  to  be  kept  out  of  the  Creed  and  the  Confession 
and  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  it  ought  to  be  revised  out 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

And  what  becomes  of  the  infallible  Bible  ?  It  was 
not  infallible  in  the  hands  of  Brigham  Young,  who  inter- 
preted its  teachings  into  polygamy.  It  was  not  infallible 
in  the  hands  of  Freeman,  who  murdered  his  little  daugh- 
ter under  its  inspiration.  It  is  not  infallible  to  any  man 
further  than  the  Spirit  of  the  Almighty  giveth  him  un- 
derstanding. 

But  the  conservative,  the  anti-rationalist,  says  that 
you  shall  not  put  your  understanding  at  work  on  the  Bi- 
ble and  find  out  what  it  means.  He  says  that  is  putting 
reason  to  judge  revelation.  What  he  micans  is  that  it  is 
putting  your  reason  to  judge  revelation,  when  he  requires 
you  to  take  his  reason  instead. 

If  you  persist,  if  you  will  not  take  his  reason,  instead 
of  using  your  own,  he  charges  you  with  the  self-conceit 
and  arrofjfance  of  maintainina^  that  there  is  a  '^  Christian 
consciousness  which  is  so  far  superior  to  the  Bible  in  au- 
thority that  it  .  .  .  may  interpret  it,  from  Genesis  to  the 
Apocalypse,  to  suit  itself,"  and  ''is  competent  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  the  word  of  God,  and  to  decide  that  it 
must  mean  some  things  and  can  not  mean  other  things." 

Hear  what  the  infallible  Bible  says  :  For  there  is  no 
work,  nor  device,  nor  knowledge,  nor  wisdom  in  the  grave 
whither  thou  goest. 

On  the  face  of  it,  this  means  that  death  ends  all. 
Looking  a  little  further  at  the  circumstances  and  charac- 
ter of  the  speaker,  it  seems  to  mean  the  weary  despair  of 


42  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

a  worn-out  yoluptuary.  But  this  is  putting  reason  to 
judge  revelation.  This  is  sitting  in  judgment  on  the 
Word  of  God.  You  must  say  that  it  means  eternal  noth- 
ingness after  death,  or  you  place  your  Christian  conscious- 
ness above  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is  infallible,  and  you 
are  not  competent  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  it :  therefore, 
the  Bible  teaches  annihilation. 

If  a  friend  writes  you  a  letter,  you  must  not  pretend 
to  understand  it.  That  is  to  decide  what  it  does  and 
does  not  mean.  That  would  be  accounting  yourself  su- 
perior to  your  friend.  That  would  be  sitting  in  judg- 
ment on  his  letter.  But,  you  naturally  ask.  Why,  then, 
does  he  write  ?  What  is  gained  by  writing  a  letter  to  a 
man  who  is  incompetent  to  judge  of  its  meaning  ? 

What  is  it  to  interpret  words  to  suit  yourself  ?  Whom 
must  you  suit  ?  Must  you  interpret  a  word  by  another 
man's  understanding  or  your  own,  as  you  believe  it  to  be 
or  as  you  believe  it  not  to  be  ? 

The  same  paragraph  which  indicts  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness for  assuming  to  be  superior  to  the  Bible  de- 
clares that  *'  two  considerations  necessarily  underlie  and 
control  the  interpretation  of  all  writing  and  speech  :  its 
terms  and  our  conception  of  the  sense  to  be  put  upon 
them." 

What  is  that  but  a  complete  surrender  ?  "  Its  terms  " 
=the  Bible.  *^  Our  conception  of  the  sense  to  be  put  on 
them  "=^^  interpreting  the  Bible  to  suit  ourselves,"  ** sit- 
ting in  judgment  upon  the  word  of  God,"  *^  deciding  that 
it  may  mean  one  thing  and  can  not  mean  another."  Yet 
this  very  thing  which  the  Christian  consciousness  is  re- 
proached for  bringing  to  bear  on  the  Bible,  the  writer  in 
the  same  breath  declares  absolutely  indispensable  to  bring 
to  bear  on  all  interpretation  of  all  writing.  Human  con- 
sciousness must  decide  all  writing ;  Christian  conscious- 
ness must  not  decide  Bible  writing. 


THE  REAL   GENESIS.  43 

Another  theological  reasoner  says  on  one  page  :  '*  That 
our  consciousness  is  not  mendacious,  lies  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all  our  thinking  and  feeling  and  well-being. "  Then 
straightway  forgetting  what  manner  of  being  he  is,  he 
hurls  at  an  erring  progressive  brother  on  the  same  day 
and  in  the  same  place  an  exultant  and  "thorough  ex- 
posure of  the  theory  that  the  Christian  consciousness  is 
the  court  of  ultimate  appeal."  He  even  lavishes  himself 
on  warnings  and  prophecies  that  "he  who  carries  his 
Bible  into  the  world  to  find  out  what  its  doctrines  are, 
and  what  its  precepts  mean,  will  find  that  the  more  he 
trusts  himself  to  the  teachings,  even  of  imperfectly  sanc- 
tified fallen  human  nature,  the  greater  will  be  his  ulti- 
mate error  and  downfall.". 

Here,  then,  are  the  propositions  : 

To  trust  consciousness  is  at  the  very  foundation  of 
right  thinking  and  right  living. 

To  trust  Christian  consciousness,  even  our  own  forti- 
fied by  that  of  other  men,  is  to  compass  error  and  down- 
fall. 

And  this  writer  is  a  doctor  of  divinity,  an  Andover 
graduate,  a  college  graduate,  a  New  Englander  born  and 
bred  under  Plymouth  Kock.  What  do  you  suppose  he 
thinks  he  means  ?  What  does  a  man  do  with  his  mind 
while  he  is  putting  two  contradictory  propositions  at  short 
range  on  the  same  page  ?  What  does  he  think  we  are 
doing  with  our  minds  when  we  are  reading  them  ?  Such 
irrationalism  in  a  teacher  is  unpardonable.  You  and  I — 
women — who  are  busy  with  the  thousand  nameless,  un- 
noted but  imperative  duties  of  life — 

"  We  poor  women,  feeble-natured,  large  of  heart,  in  wisdom  small, 
Who  the  world's  incessant  battle  can  not  understand  at  all " — 

we  are  not  expected  to  be  logical,  or  even  to  understand 
logic.  We  may,  in  our  small  way,  jump  a  syllogism, 
dash  up  against  a  fallacy,  and  not  forfeit  our  right  to 


44  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

self-respect !  But  for  a  man,  a  college  graduate,  a  voter, 
a  legislator,  a  theological  professor  and  teacher  with  the 
Westminster  Catechism  at  his  tongue's  end,  to  put  upon 
the  same  page,  fronting  each  other,  glaring  at  each  other, 
two  contradictory  statements  that  can  only  devour  each 
other — is  for  a  man  to  invite  woman  into  the  pulpit ! 

When  Protestant  conservatism  is  arguing  against  the 
Pope  it  is  as  strong  a  rationalist  as  any  philosopher  could 
ask. 

Rome  or  reason  was  perhaps  never  set  forth  more 
clearly  and  conclusively  than  on  the  pages  of  an  evan- 
gelical newspaper  that  is  foremost  in  the  struggle  against 
reason:  "As  we  look  at  it,  only  two  alternatives  are 
possible  in  this  matter  of  an  infallible  faith  ;  either  the 
conditions  of  it  exist  outside  of  the  soul  in  some  con- 
stituted and  certified  authority,  or  within  the  soul  in  the 
purest  and  loftiest  exercise  of  its  reason.  If  outside  of 
the  soul,  in  any  central  and  constituted  authority,  then 
in  the  Pope.  If  inside  the  soul,  then  God  remits  every 
man  to  those  conditions  of  secure  decision  which  he  has 
established  in  his  breast,  and  holds  him  responsible  for  a 
judgment  and  a  life  founded  upon  them.  God  never 
commands  men  to  hang  their  faith  on  the  Pope  or  the 
Bishop  ;  but  rather  inquires — in  that  tone  of  asking  which 
is  equivalent  to  the  highest  form  of  injunction — '  Why 
[aph''  heauton]  out  of  your  own  selves  do  ye  not  judge 
what  is  right  ?'  The  entire  appeal  of  the  apostle  is  to 
the  tribunal  of  the  Hebrews'  reason  as  the  court  of  ulti- 
mate decision. 

**  We  are  even  prepared  to  go  so  far  as  to  claim  that, 
as  human  nature  has  been  divinely  constituted,  it  is  a 
psychological  impossibility  for  any  man  to  waive  this 
prerogative  of  being  the  supreme  authority  over  himself 
in  regard  to  his  religion. 

'^  There  lies  before  us  a  recent  number  of  a  relisfious 


THE  REAL  GENESIS.  45 

quarterly  containing  an  elaborate  article  entitled  An  In- 
fallible Church,  or  an  Infallible  Book — which  ?  the  great 
object  of  which  is  to  dethrone  the  Pope  and  enthrone  the 
Bible,  as  the  subject  of  indubitable  faith,  with  that  re- 
ligious certitude  with  which  it  may  logically  comfort 
the  soul.  To  quote  its  own  language,  it  would  make  the 
Bible  Hhe  supreme  and  only  arbiter  in  things  spiritual.' 
And  this,  it  thinks,  would  cause  '  divisions  to  cease  among 
us  forever.'  But  this  forgets  that  the  Bible  is  always  at 
the  mercy  of  its  interpreters,  and  its  unity  becomes  con- 
tinual diversity— being  all  things  to  all  men,  as  they  com- 
pel it,  by  the  manner  in  which  they  receive  it. 

*'It  is,  then,  both  the  privilege  and  the  duty  of  every 
man  to  be  a  law  unto  himself  ;  and  out  of  his  own  reason 
and  conscience  to  judge  what  is  right.  From  the  decision 
which  he  thus  reaches  there  can  be,  for  him,  no  aj^peal. 
Whether  it  is  anybody  else's  duty  to  follow  the  course 
prescribed  therein  or  not,  it  is  Ms  duty  to  do  so.  He  has 
pleaded  his  cause  before  his  infallible  tribunal,  and  its 
decision  over  him  is  necessarily  supreme  and  inexorable. 
Not  to  obey  it  would  be  to  be  false  equally  to  God  and  to 
himself.  If  it  be  not  absolute  right  which  he  has  reached, 
it  stands  in  the  place  of  absolute  right  for  him  ;  and  only 
along  its  road,  however  thorny  and  steep  and  high,  can 
he  climb  up  toward  heaven.  Practically,  then,  we  insist 
upon  it,  there  is  no  infallibility  possible  to  man  but  that 
which  is  resident  in  his  own  soul." 

Yet  when  this  same  Protestant  rationalism  was  grap- 
pling with  doctrinal  rationalism,  it  turned  its  back  on  its 
own  reasoning  and  maintained  that  if  this  inner  tribunal 
be  ultimate,  it  must  be  able  to  discern  the  perfect  truth 
and  divinity  of  each  and  every  joart  of  the  Bible.  It 
must  be  able  infallibly  to  distinguish  the  apocryphal 
from  the  canonical.  It  must  be  able  to  pronounce  judg- 
ment concerning  the  genuineness,  or  at  least  the  inspira- 


46  A  WASHINGTON   BIBLE  CLASS. 

tion,  of  the  disputed  books.  It  must  be  able  to  detect  all 
interpolations  of  uninspired  transcribers,  and  all  devia- 
tions of  the  manuscripts  from  the  original  record. 

Must  it  ?  Can  not  your  trained  Christian  conscious- 
ness tell  you  anything  unless  it  tell  you  everything  ?  Does 
mathematical  consciousness  tell  you  everything  in  mathe- 
matics ?  Can  not  your  mathematical  consciousness  be 
trained  to  the  point  of  acquainting  you  with  the  fact  that 
there  are  four  fingers  on  each  hand  unless  it  tell  you  also 
how  many  bones  and  joints  and  muscles  and  corpuscles 
there  are  in  those  four  fingers  and  what  are  their  names  ? 
Must  it  tell  you  how  the  blood  circulates  and  nourishes, 
colors  and  purifies  itself  ?  Must  it  tell  you  on  what  prin- 
ciple, in  what  method,  that  blood  gathers  itself  from 
chyme  and  chyle,  and  lends  to  the  nails  their  hardness 
and  to  the  flesh  its  softness  ?  Christian  consciousness  is 
only  one  phase  of  the  universal  consciousness.  We  might 
just  as  well  say  that  the  baby  can  not  trust  the  multipli- 
cation table  unless  he  can  comprehend  the  calculus  as  to 
say  that  a  man  can  not  truly  believe  in  the  baptism  of 
repentance  for  the  remission  of  sins  unless  he  understands 
with  equal  clearness  the  whirl  of  Ezekiel's  wheels,  wheel 
within  wheel,  the  beryl  stone,  and  the  terrible  crystal, 
for  the  spirit  of  the  living  creature  was  in  the  wheels  ! 

Assume  for  a  moment  that  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness does  not  give  us  assurance  concerning  the  Divine 
authority  and  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures ;  what  does  ? 
The  Church?  The  minister?  The  council  ?  The  as- 
semblies ?  The  bishops  ?  Your  Christian  consciousness 
must  give  you  assurance  concerning  them  !  The  creed 
tells  you  what  Paul  means,  but  what  tells  you  that  you 
may  trust  the  creed  ?  The  Church  bids  you  trust  the 
catechism,  but  your  own  Christian  consciousness  must 
answer  for  the  Church.  You  take  just  as  much  responsi- 
bility by  sitting  in  judgment  on  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 


THE  REAL   GENESIS.  47 

which  interpret  the  Bible  as  you  do  by  sitting  in  judg- 
ment on  the  Bible.  You  take  as  much  responsibility  in 
accepting  the  Apostles*  Creed  as  you  do  in  accepting  the 
apostles.  You  perform  the  most  momentous  act  of  pri- 
Yate  Judgment  in  relinquishing  private  judgment. 

It  is  brought  with  great  solemnity  against  Dr.  Har- 
per that  he  has  plainly  declared  that  the  Christian  stu- 
dent, after  having  found  out  just  the  language  used  by 
the  authors  of  the  various  books  of  the  Bible  and  the  ex- 
act meaning  of  the  language,  must  apply  the  final  test  of 
his  own  reason  in  determining  what  statements  are  true 
and  what  are  to  be  rejected.  To  the  plain  question  of 
one  of  his  students,  *^Do  you  mean  to  say  that  if  my 
reason  condemns  any  Scriptural  statement  as  untrue  I 
must  reject  it  ?"  his  reply  was  :  ''Certainly  ;  for  what 
purpose  was  your  reason  given  you  ?  " 

Whatever  Dr.  Harper  may  have  said,  it  is  forever  true 
that  not  only  has  a  man  the  right  to  reject  what  his  rea- 
son contradicts,  but  he  has  not  the  power  to  do  any- 
thing else.  It  is  a  psychological  impossibility.  No  man 
can  believe  against  his  reason,  because  it  is  through  his 
reason  that  he  believes.  To  say  that  he  must  believe 
what  his  reason  rejects  is  to  say  that  he  must  believe 
what  he  can  not  believe.  If  a  teacher — be  his  name  John 
Baptist  or  John  Smith — should  say,  ''every  child  is  bom 
with  six  fingers  on  each  hand,"  you  could  not  believe 
him,  because  your  reason  tells  you  that  four  is  the  nor- 
mal number.  If  the  penalty  for  not  believing  were  death 
at  the  stake,  you  might  conceal  your  conviction  ;  you 
might  even  put  in  your  public  confession  of  faith  that 
there  are  six  fingers  on  each  hand  ;  and  if  you  were  a 
scientific  and  conscientious  man  you  would  betimes  dis- 
cover that  the  elasticity  of  language  permits  you  to  call 
the  thumb  a  finger,  and  the  elasticity  of  science  might 
permit  you  to  discern  somewhere  under  the  skin  a  rudi- 


48  A  WASnmGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

mentary  finger,  suppressed  by  your  environment  in  some 
past  age,  or  to  be  developed  by  your  environment  in  some 
future  age,  and  so  you  might  somehow  creep  along  con- 
scientiously with  your  six  fingers  till  a  learned  linguist, 
mousing  among  old  manuscript,  should  detect  a  clerical 
error,  and  announce  that  John's  copyist  had  mistaken 
four  for  six,  but  that  really  it  was  in  the  original  four 
fingers  on  each  hand.  Yet  how  much  trouble  would  have 
been  saved  if  in  the  beginning  we  had  not  worshiped  the 
letter — had  recognized  the  claims  of  reason  and  simply 
said  there  must  be  a  mistake  somewhere  :  our  Christian 
consciousness  is  enough  when  it  tells  us  that  there  are 
only  four  fingers  on  each  hand  ! 

This  is  where  the  orthodox  play  into  the  hands  of  the 
fool  who  saith  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God.  Mind, 
I  do  not  say  the  thoughtful — it  may  be  sad,  it  may  be 
weary — searcher  for  truth  who  confesses  with  more  or 
less  of  pathos  and  patience,  *' I  can  not  see  God."  I 
mean  the  blatant  and  boastful  agnostic  who  never  went 
ankle-deep  in  Scriptural  or  any  other  investigation,  but 
who  makes  more  noise  shouting  and  splashing  in  the 
shoals  than  the  whole  Squadron  of  Evolution  makes  in 
saih'ng  the  wide  seas  over.  His  idea  of  argument  is  :  Do 
you  believe  Joshua's  sun  stayed  in  the  sky  all  night  ?  Do 
you  believe  Lot's  wife  turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt  ?  Yes  ? 
Then  you  are  an  ignoramus.  No  ?  Then  you  must 
throw  away  the  Bible  or  proclaim  yourself  a  coward  and 
a  hypocrite. 

The  real  scholars  do  neither.  The  men  who  are  in- 
creasing the  sum  of  the  world's  knowledge  are  studying, 
not  scoffing,  the  Bible.  President  White,  in  the  very 
exposition  of  the  story  of  Lot's  wife,  has  served  well  every 
department  of  study  by  the  excellence  of  his  method. 
The  folly  of  anti-rationalism  was  never  more  clearly 
demonstrated  than  by  his  presentation  of  the  grotesque 


THE   REAL   GENESIS.  49 

absurdities  that  clustered  and  flourished  around  Lot's 
wife  in  its  absence.  Our  old  friend  Josephus  has  gently 
enlarged  upon  the  sacred  record  in  the  supposition  that 
''continually  turning  back  to  view  the  city  as  she  went 
from  it " — apparently  thinking  her  punishment  too  severe 
for  a  single  lapse—''  and  being  too  nicely  inquisitive  what 
would  become  of  it,  .  .  .  was  changed  into  a  pillar  of  salt ; 
for  I  have  seen  it,  and  it  remains  to  this  day  ? '' 

President  White  summons  from  the  second  cent- 
ury the  great  father,  bishop,  and  martyr,  Irenaeus,  who 
not  only  vouches  for  the  biography,  but  countenances 
the  belief  that  the  soul  of  Lot's  wife  still  lingered  in 
the  statue,  giving  it  a  sort  of  organic  life.  The  Tar- 
gum  of  Jerusalem  not  only  testified  that  the  salt  pillar 
at  Usdum  was  once  Lot's  wife,  but  declared  that  she 
must  retain  that  form  until  the  general  resurrection.  In 
the  fifteenth  century  the  friar  Felix  Fabri  declared  that 
he  could  not  see  the  statue  because  he  was  too  far  off ; 
"but  we  saw  it  with  firm  faith,  because  we  believed 
Scripture,  and  we  were  full  of  wonder."  And  he  gives 
a  new  touch  in  the  information  that  Lot's  wife  had  met 
her  peculiar  punishment  because  she  had  refused  to  add 
salt  to  the  food  of  the  angels  when  they  visited  her. 
Giraudet,  a  priest,  clinched  the  whole  matter  by  testify- 
ing to  the  point.  He  found  her  !  She  was  "  lying  there, 
her  back  toward  heaven,  converted  into  a  salt  stone,  for 
I  touched  her,  scratched  her,  and  put  a  piece  of  her  into 
my  mouth,  and  she  tasted  salt ! " 

If  testimony  never  agreed,  a  theory  was  established 
for  each  fact.  If  pillars  of  salt  were  washed  away,  and 
new  ones  appeared  in  different  places,  it  was  because 
Lot's  wife  was  walking  about.  If  a  small  salt  block  ac- 
cumulated near  the  statue,  it  was  madam's  pet  dog  also 
transformed  into  salt.  If  the  statue  were  forty  feet  high, 
"  there  were  giants  in  those  days  "  to  account  for  it.  If 
4 


50  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

no  statue  were  to  be  seen,  Lot's  wife  w^as  taking  a  salt- 
water bath  in  the  Dead  Sea.  As  early  as  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  however,  we  find  a  theory  similar 
to  the  one  that  has  been  presented  here — a  suggestion 
that  Lot's  wife  was  caught  in  a  shower  of  sulphur  and 
saltpetre,  which  covered  her  and  converted  her  into  a 
pillar  of  salt.  It  is  pleasant  to  see  all  the  way  along  that 
the  heart  of  humanity  is  sounder  than  its  head,  and  that 
both  Protestant  and  Catholic,  though  ready  to  pound  all 
the  world  to  pieces  on  the  question  of  Lofs  wife's  body, 
were  equally  ready  to  admit  that  her  soul  was  not  eter- 
nally damned,  Luther  even  going  so  far  as  to  pronounce 
her  a  faithful  and  saintly  woman. 

The  only  i:)oint  on  which  we  should  fundamentally 
disagree  with  President  White  is  where  he  characterizes 
'*  statements  which  enlightened  men  throughout  the 
w^orld  hnoiv  to  be  mythical."  Know  is  a  far  vv^ord,  espe- 
cially when  it  is  four  thousand  years  away,  and  while  as 
yet  the  East  has  hardly  more  than  begun  to  develop  its 
hidden  treasures  of  tablet  and  other  testimony.  The 
moral  effect  is  just  as  strong  if  wt  say  with  him  that  the 
worst  enemy  of  Christianity  could  wish  nothing  more 
than  that  its  main  leaders  should  insist  that  it  can  not  bo 
adopted  save  by  those  who  accept  as  historical,  statements 
which  enlightened  men  throughout  the  w^orld  liold  to  be 
mythical. 

Shall  we  now  stand  for  a  moment  in  the  light  of 
Joshua's  sun  ?  For  three  thousand  years  it  never  troubled 
us.  If  people  thought  at  all  about  it,  they  thought  God 
could  as  easily  make  the  sun  shine  for  two  days  as  for 
one.  They  apparently  looked  at  it  like  Ruskin  :  '■'  What  ! 
surprised  that  the  sun  should  stand  still  ?  Not  a  bit ! 
I  always  expected  it  would  !  The  miracle  is  in  keeping 
it  going  !"  But  presently  science  began  to  stir,  and  as- 
tronomy began  to  adjust  the  universe  and  to  discover 


THE   REAL   GENESIS.  51 

that  everything  in  it  would  have  to  be  turned  upside 
down  if  the  sun  stood  still,  and  the  wiseacres  and  the 
penny-a-liners  raised  a  loud  cry  that  now  the  Bible  must 
surely  be  thrown  away,  because  Joshua  was  proved  by 
science  to  be  an  arrant  humbug  ! 

Time  rolled  on,  and  people  did  not  throw  away  their 
Bibles  in  spite  of  that  unastronomical  and  unscientific 
sun.  People  are  very  apt  iiot  to  throw  away  their  Bi- 
bles, even  when  they  are  bidden.  One  day  in  the  autumn 
of  1883  I  was  walking  in  the  country  alone,  when  I  pres- 
ently became  aware  of  something  extraordinary  in  the 
world— in  the  earth,  and  in  the  heavens.  It  was  just 
sunset ;  the  sun  had  gone  down  ;  it  ought  to  be  dusk,  yet 
it  was  not  dusk.  It  was  so  noticeable,  so  impressive,  so 
persistently  light  and  softly  bright  that  I  stood  still  front- 
ing the  west.  The  whole  world  was  aglow.  Over  the 
round  earth  was  a  suffusing  yellow  light.  High  up, 
mounting  almost  to  the  zenith,  a  red  sky  reigned — a 
soft,  red  gold  inexpressibly  strange,  beautiful,  unnat- 
ural. You  remember  it.  By  the  morning  papers  we 
learned  that  the  wide  earth  was  bathed  in  that  wonder- 
ful sun-glow. 

Science  started  out  to  investigate  the  red  sunsets,  all 
the  newspapers  struck  in  to  lend  a  hand,  and  even  ortho- 
doxy itself  reported  that  *^a  committee  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety of  England,  appointed  to  report  upon  these  sun- 
glows,  connects  them  with  the  volcanic  eruption  of  Kra- 
katoa,  which  threw  into  the  upper  region  of  the  atmos- 
phere immense  clouds  of  vitreous  pumice-dust,  or  fine 
particles  of  glass.  This  material  was  projected  into  a 
stratum  of  the  air  from  fourteen  to  twenty  miles  above 
the  sea-level.  The  glows  spoken  of  were  caused  by  the 
reflection  of  this  cloud  of  glass-like  particles,  and  its 
great  height  caused  the  effect  to  continue  much  later  in 
the  evenins:  than  that  which  results  from  reflection  of 


52  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

particles  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  atmosphere,  and  pro- 
duces ordinary  twilight. 

"  Upon  searching  the  records  for  corresponding  phe- 
nomena in  the  past,  it  is  found  that  such  after-glows  are 
by  no  means  infrequent.  In  1831,  when  volcanic  erup- 
tions were  especially  numerous,  there  were  times  when 
the  sky  was  brilliantly  lighted  at  midnight,  so  that  at 
Berlin  and  Genoa  small  print  could  be  read  when  '  the 
sun  must  have  been  nineteen  degrees  below  the  horizon.' 

*^  Close  examination  of  the  account  of  the  miracle  in 
Joshua  does  much  to  prepare  the  way  for  some  such  nat- 
ural explanation  of  the  events  of  that  day  as  is  suggested 
by  the  report  of  the  Royal  Society.  Orthodox  conserva- 
tive commentators  like  Keil  properly  insist  upon  our  ob- 
serving that  these  verses  (x,  12-15)  are  parenthetical — a 
quotation  from  the  poetical  Book  of  Jasher,  in  which  the 
words  of  Joshua  were  first  recorded. 

"  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  such  a  poetical  description 
should  have  arisen  without  some  basis  in  fact.  This 
poetical  quotation  from  the  Book  of  Jasher  is  amply 
explained  and  accounted  for  by  some  such  natural  pro- 
longation of  daylight  at  that  particular  juncture  as  we 
have  already  witnessed  more  than  once  during  the  present 
century.  Such  an  explanation  of  the  account  relieves  it 
from  the  apparent  incongruity  of  disarranging  the  whole 
mechanism  of  the  heavens  to  bring  about  so  small  a  result 
as  the  defeat  of  an  army.  Such  an  enormous  disarrange- 
ment is  out  of  harmony  with  the  ordinary  economy  in 
the  use  of  miracles  as  detailed  in  Bible  history.  But  it 
is  no  small  confirmation  of  the  general  accuracy  of  the 
Scripture  narratives  that  so  ready  an  explanation  is  at 
hand  for  the  poetical  description  incorporated  from  the 
Book  of  Jasher  into  this  remarkable  account."  And  the 
style  and  spirit  of  it  correspond  exactly  with  those  of 
the  preceding  verse.     In  the  same  flight  which  the  pro- 


THE  REAL   GENESIS.  53 

longed  sunliglit  made  victorious  to  the  Hebrews,  fatal  to 
the  Amorites,  the  historian  adds  :  '^The  Lord  cast  down 
great  stones  from  heaven  upon  them,  and  they  died." 
This  is  not  cited  as  miracle.  Why  ?  Because  the  writer 
immediately  adds  :  '^  They  were  more  which  died  with 
hailstones  than  they  whom  the  children  of  Israel  slew 
with  the  sword."  He  chanced  to  duplicate  his  stones 
with  hailstones,  and  a  hailstone  is  not  an  uncommon 
occurrence.  Even  hail  large  enough  to  kill  a  man  is 
known  to  experience  [hail  was  falling  in  Baltimore  at 
the  very  moment  the  Bible  class  were  listening  to  this 
reading,  in  a  storm  which  destroyed  property  and  imper- 
iled life]  ;  but  these  volcanic  sunsets  we  knew  nothing 
about,  and  so  we  said  Joshua's  sun-glow  is  a  miracle.  If 
the  sacred  writer  or  the  profane  copyist  had  happened  to 
leave  those  ''hailstones"  out  and  put  in  only  *' stones," 
that  form  of  unfaith  which  recognizes  itself  as  conserva- 
tism would  not  have  allowed  us  to  suggest  that  they  were 
hailstones,  because  that  would  have  been  rationah'sm ; 
that  would  have  been  sitting  in  judgment  on  the  word  of 
God  ;  that  would  have  been  putting  reason  to  judge  reve- 
lation. But  the  Lord  is  said  to  have  thrown  the  stones 
just  as  much  as  he  stayed  the  sun.  And  he  threw  the 
stones  as  he  often  throws  stones,  which  we  call  hail-stones. 
So,  by  parity  of  reason,  he  stayed  the  sun  through  natural 
processes. 

But  it  is  not  for  the  most  radical  rationalists  to  plume 
themselves  on  their  wider  views,  on  their  more  advanced 
thought.  There  is  nothing  original  in  their  interpreta- 
tion, nothing  that  the  world  has  not  been  well  informed 
of.  Their  views  have  been  held  from  time  immemorial. 
Nothing  can  be  more  rational  than  the  account  of  Jose- 
phus  : 

"  The  place  is  called  Beth-horon,  where  he  also  under- 
stood that  God  assisted  him,  wMcli  he  declared  ly  thun- 


54:  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

der  and  thunder-holts,  as  also  ly  the  falling  of  hail  larger 
than  usual.  Moreover,  it  happened  that  the  day  was 
lengthened,  that  the  night  might  not  come  on  too  soon 
and  be  an  obstruction  to  the  zeal  of  the  Hebrews  in  pur- 
suing their  enemies.  Now,  that  the  day  was  lengthened 
at  this  time,  and  was  longer  than  ordinary,  is  expressed 
in  the  books  laid  up  in  the  temple."'  Mr.  Whiston,  Cam- 
bridge Professor  of  Mathematics  in  the  early  years  of 
the  present  century,  comments  calmly:  "Whether  this 
lengthening  of  the  day  by  the  standing  still  of  the  sun 
and  moon  were  physical  and  real,  by  the  miraculous  stop- 
page of  the  diurnal  motion  of  the  earth  for  about  half  a 
revolution,  or  whether  only  apparent,  by  aerial  phosjjho- 
ri,  or  mock  sun,  affording  sufficient  light  for  Joshua's 
pursuit  and  complete  victory  {luhich  aerial  phosphori  in 
other  shapes  have  teen  more  than  ordinarily  common  of 
late  years),  can  not  now  be  determined  ;  philosophers  and 
astronomers  will  naturally  incline  to  this  latter  hypothe- 
sis." 

Neither  science  nor  piety  need  lash  themselves  to  fury 
over  the  explanations  of  literature.  They  are  questions 
of  literature.  They  are  not  questions  of  faith.  Let  the 
potsherd  strive  with  the  potsherds  ;  that  is  the  way  of 
pottery.     But  the  word  of  our  God  shall  stand  forever. 

This  lyric  of  Joshua  is  poetry,  it  is  religion,  it  is  ra- 
tionalism. The  poetry  of  it  and  the  religion  of  it  stood 
man  in  good  stead  for  three  thousand  years  ;  then  science 
stepped  forward  and  said  it  could  not  be.  Astronomical 
law  forbade  it.  But  science  stepped  forward  again  and 
said  it  could  be.  Geological  law  ordained  it.  Science 
even  showed  how  it  could  be.  And  so,  besides  the  poetry 
of  it,  and  besides  the  religion  of  it,  and  besides  the  science 
of  it,  we  have,  thanks  to  rationalism,  an  invaluable  leaf 
saved  out  of  that  lost  Book  of  Jasher,  an  invaluable  page 
out  of  perished  history,  a  glimpse  of  the  sociology  and 


THE   RExVL   GENESIS.  55 

literature  and  natural  phenomena  of  a  yanished  world. 
Throw  away  the  Bible  ?  No  !  If  there  were  but  one 
Bible  on  the  earth,  we  should  do  well  to  mount  guard 
over  it  with  the  whole  United  States  army  rather 
than  lose  it  out  of  history  even,  not  to  say  out  of  the- 
ology. 

It  is  science  itself  which  forbids  us  to  pronounce  too 
confidently  against  even  the  literal  truthfulness  of  the 
Bible.  Many  things  which  might  be  given  up  to  legend 
without  impairing  the  moral  value  of  the  Holy  Scripture, 
because  God  can  be  illustrated  by  a  legend  or  a  myth  as 
well  as  by  a  fact,  science  and  research  seem  to  be  basing 
upon  a  true  historical  foundation.  The  rationalist  must 
be  wary  with  his  myths,  for  the  Egyptian  explorers  are  at 
his  heels.  Rationalism  would  not  insist  too  strenuously 
upon  the  details  of  that  beautiful  Oriental  romance,  the 
history  of  Joseph,  but  neither  may  we  be  too  strenuous  in 
relegating  it  to  romance.  Its  personages,  its  scenery,  its 
incidents,  are  coming  out  in  brick  and  stone,  as  well  as  in 
immemorial  Scripture,  to  the  light  of  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury. Miss  Edwards  has  told  us  of  excavated  cities  whose 
buildings  at  the  foundations  have  bricks  made  of  coarse, 
scanty  straw ;  higher  up,  these  bricks  are  mixed  with  a 
rank  weed,  and  at  the  top  are  composed  only  of  the  Nile 
mud.  Through  all  these  centuries  the  Bible  alone  has 
preserved  those  bricks  without  straw,  to  be  unearthed  by 
our  spades. 

Professor  Sayce  tells  us  that,  a  century  before  the  ex- 
odus, active  literary  intercourse  was  going  on  between 
Babylon  and  Egypt  and  the  smaller  states  of  Palestine 
and  Syria.  Over  the  civilized  East  there  must  have 
been  libraries  and  schools  where  the  Babylonian  language 
and  literature  were  taught,  because  that  tongue  appears 
to  have  been  as  much  the  language  of  diplomacy  and  of 
cultivated  society  as  the  French  is  the  language  of  Eu- 


56  A  WASHLVGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

rojpe.  Kirjath-Sepher,  the  name  of  the  city  which  gave 
Joshua  so  much  trouble  that  he  offered  his  daughter  as 
wife  to  the  man  who  should  take  it,  means  Book- town, 
and  it  was  the  seat  of  a  famous  library.  Its  name  was 
also  Debir,  meaning  sanctuary,  indicating  that  its  books 
were  stored  in  its  chief  temple,  like  the  libraries  of  As- 
syria and  Babylonia.  These  books  were  in  the  form  of 
clay  tablets  inscribed  with  the  cuneiform  characters,  as 
we  learn  from  the  archives  of  the  palace  of  Amenophis 
III,  just  discovered.  It  is  not  impossible  that  those  clay 
tablets  may  still  exist  under  the  soil,  awaiting  the  spade 
that  shall  disclose  to  the  nineteenth  century  the  very  books 
which  the  Canaan ite  scholars  were  reading  and  writing  a 
hundred  years  before  Othniel  attacked  their  city,  stimu- 
lated by  his  love  for  the  beautiful  Achsah,  whose  hand 
awaited  the  victor.  In  this,  too,  we  have  a  glimpse  of 
another  of  the  many  romances  scattered  along  the  Bible 
paths — the  heartsome,  human  Bible  paths — for  Othniel 
was  the  son  of  Kenaz,  Caleb's  younger  brother,  and  Caleb 
was  the  partner  of  Joshua,  and  co-leader  with  him  in 
Israel,  so  that  both  young  people  were  of  distinguished 
family.  Probably  they  had  seen  much  of  each  other,  and 
possibly  it  was  a  knowledge  of  the  mutual  attachment  of 
the  cousins  which  was  in  Caleb's  confident  mind  when  he 
announced  his  daughter  as  the  prize  of  the  victor.  Very 
likely  he  knew  the  young  man's  mettle,  and  meant  not  so 
much  to  give  a  stimulus  as  an  opportunity.  The  scheme 
was  in  any  case  brilliantly  successful.  The  young  man 
won  a  great  victory  and  a  great  match.  An  admirable 
match  it  proved  for  the  girl  also,  since  Othniel  was  not 
only  a  skillful  and  successful  general  in  war,  but  an  able 
administrator  in  peace  and  an  upright  judge.  When 
Israel  cried  unto  the  Lord  in  stress  of  anguish,  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  came  upon  him,  and  he  went  out  to  war  and 
prevailed,  and  came  home  and  administered  justice  with 


THE   REAL   GENESIS.  -     57 

equity,  and  held  the  land  tranquil  and  prosperous  forty 
years,  till  Othniel  slept  with  his  fathers. 

In  a  careful  reading  of  these  clay  tablets  just  discov- 
ered in  Egyptian  palaces,  many  names  and  incidents  are 
confirmed  which  have  hitherto  been  met  only  in  the  Bi- 
ble, thus  restoring  to  history  what  we  had  ignorantly  rel- 
egated to  myth. 

Mr.  Harper,  an  artist  who  has  traveled  much  in  the 
Holy  Land,  is  an  accomplished  Bible  scholar,  and  has  been 
for  many  years  an  active  member  of  the  Palestine  Explora- 
tion Fund  Committee.  His  general  conclusion  is  that 
the  statements  of  the  Bible  are  being  confirmed  by  mod- 
ern discoveries  in  a  remarkably  full  and  exact  manner. 
You  may  not  ask  too  scofiTmgly  whether  the  Assyrian  came 
down  like  the  wolf  on  the  fold,  and  whether  Hezekiah  and 
his  princes  and  his  mighty  men  really  did  stop  the  waters 
of  the  fountains  to  keep  him  out.  We  have  found  the 
plug ! 

Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  Mr.  Harper  believes,  were  de- 
stroyed by  lightning.  Joshua's  delaying  sun  was  due  to 
refraction  caused  by  the  intense  cold  of,  or  connected 
with,  the  hail-storm  ;  and  declares  the  phenomenon  not 
unknown  in  the  present. 

Rationalism  can  as  easily  lead  to  folly  as  the  rabies 
against  rationalism.  Eationalistic  fancy  is  as  unscholarly 
as  anti-rationalistic  fact.  The  old  Ebionites  "  explained  " 
Paul's  conversion  by  theorizing  that  he  was  a  Greek  who 
went  up  to  Jerusalem,  fell  in  love  with  the  high  priest's 
daughter,  was  refused,  and  in  resentment  set  himself 
full  against  high  priest,  altar,  law,  Sabbath,  and  every- 
thing distinctively  Jewish.  And  a  new  Ebionite,  not 
evidently  meaning  to  be  profane,  seriously  suggests  :  ^^It 
seems  evident,  then,  that  upon  emerging  into  manhood 
Jesus  found  himself  in  love.  But  with  whom  ?  Tradi- 
tion does  not  tell  us.     Yet  can  we  not  see  her  ?    Is  it  not 


58  A  WASHINGTON  EIBLE  CLASS. 

always  the  same  girl,  foreyer  reappearing,  who  attracts 
genius  in  its  first  longings  for  sympathy  ?  It  is  easy  to 
see  the  soft,  appealing  eyes,  with  more  luster  than  steadi- 
ness ;  the  face  richer  in  forehead  than  in  jaw  and  chin  ; 
the  slight  figure,  full  of  a  nameless  grace,  a  tender  charm, 
which  would  be  perfect  were  it  not  for  a  certain  inde- 
cision which  lurks  in  every  attitude.  Alas  !  she  is  more 
truthful  than  candid  ;  more  gentle  and  complying  than 
sympathetic ;  more  self-denying  than  unselfish.  .  .  . 
And  yet  how  affectionate  and  winning  !  How  tempting 
a  rock  for  a  man  to  split  the  powers  of  his  mind  and 
heart  upon  ! " 

This,  which  is  no  more  rationalism  than  it  is  exegesis, 
simply  shows  the  obtuse  angle  which  folly  may  make  in 
the  rebound.  We  have  a  right  to  the  romance  of  Othniel 
and  Achsah,  of  Kuth  and  Boaz,  of  Esther  and  Ahasuerus. 
They  are  given.  Such  Ebionitish  fictions,  without  per- 
spective and  without  dignity,  have  no  value  beyond  the 
quality  of  the  thought  which  produced  them.  They  do 
not  dim  the  glory  of  true  reasoning. 

We  who  were  born  and  bred  in  a  New  England  village 
remember  the  big  red  Bible  that  always  stood  apart  on 
a  table  by  itself  in  the  best  chamber,  in  the  guest  cham- 
ber— a  book  which  was  sacred  on  week-days  from  child- 
ish meddlesome  fingers,  but  was  free  on  Sundays  after 
church  to  best  clothes  and  immaculate  hands.  Among 
the  astonishing  pictures  in  this  Bible  was  the  passage  of 
the  Israelites  through  the  Red  Sea.  On  each  side  the 
procession  stood  an  even,  high  wall  of  water  that  looked 
like  masonry,  as  solid  as  rock,  with  a  dry,  clean,  smooth 
path  under  foot.  Against  that  wall  of  water  scientific 
skepticism  threw  itself  in  scorn,  and  did  make  some 
breaches  therein ;  but  by  and  by  came  Rationalism  pok- 
ing its  fingers  into  geography,  visited  the  Red  Sea,  and 
found  out  that  at  Suez  there  is  a  bar  extending  from 


THE   REAL   GENESIS.  59 

one  shore  to  the  other,  which  at  times  is  no\7  almost 
laid  bare  by  a  favorable  conjunction  of  low  tide  and 
strong  east  wind.  Upon  either  side  of  this  bar  the  water 
is  deep. 

Does  it  not  all  stand  explained  ?  You  who  have  been 
at  Bar  Harbor  can  see  that  a  retreating  army  might  get 
away  from  a  pursuing  army  in  Mount  Desert  by  being  at 
the  bar  at  low  tide  and  rushing  across  to  Bar  Island, 
while  the  returning  high  tide  should  keep  the  pursuing 
army  on  Mount  Desert. 

The  Ked  Sea  tide  is  an  irregular  one — not  always  to 
be  depended  upon  for  withdrawal.  But  it  came  to  pass, 
in  the  course  of  nature,  by  the  determinate  counsel  and 
foreknowledge  of  God,  that  the  frightened,  fleeing  Is- 
raelites found  the  bar  so  bared  that  they  could  cross  it. 
By  the  course  of  Nature  ?  Certainly.  So  the  record 
says.  The  Lord  caused  the  sea  to  go  back  by  a  strong 
east  wind  all  night.  That  is  nature,  not  miracle.  That 
is  the  way  the  Eed  Sea  bar  is  always  bared.  The  Is- 
raelites came  safely  through  between  the  deep  waters  on 
each  side.  The  Egyptians  plunged  in  after  them,  hot- 
headed ;  but  before  they  had  crossed,  the  waters  began  to 
flow  down  again — not  miraculously,  not  falling  upon 
them  from  a  wall  above  their  heads,  but  slowly  rising  be- 
neath their  feet ;  a  rising  tide,  only  muddy  at  first,  so 
that  they  drove  heavily,  clogging  their  wheels,  and  even 
leaving  them  sticking  fast  in  the  mud.  The  water  deep- 
ened, slowly  rising,  but  always  rising,  so  that  the  hot 
haste  of  pursuit  had  time  to  cool,  and  leaders  took  coun- 
sel and  decided  that  it  was  too  dangerous  to  attempt  fur- 
ther passage  against  the  threatening  waters,  and  turned 
back  and  fled  in  panic — too  late  !  too  late  ! 

"  The  feet  had  hardly  time  to  flee 
Before  it  brake  against  the  knee, 
And  all  the  world  was  in  the  sea." 


60  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

Dr.  Talmage  asks  :  ''Why  not  be  frank,  and  say,  'I 
believe  the  Lord  God  Almighty  came  to  the  brink  of  the 
Eed  Sea,  and  with  his  right  arm  swung  back  the  billows 
on  the  right  side,  and  with  his  left  arm  swung  back  the 
billows  on  the  left  side,  and  the  abashed  water  stood  up 
hundreds  of  feet  high,  while  through  their  glassy  wail 
the  sea-monsters  gazed  with  affrighted  eyes  on  the  passing 
Israelites  ? ' " 

Because  we  do  not  believe  it.  Because  the  Bible  does 
not  say  so.  It  was  Moses  who  came  to  the  brink  of  the 
Eed  Sea  and  swung  his  arms.  That  is  like  a  man.  The 
Lord  God  caused  the  sea  to  go  back  by  a  strong  east  wind 
all  night.  That  is  like  God.  Doubtless  Dr.  Talmage, 
with  his  irrepressible  energy,  would  have  made  a  much 
greater  stirabout  of  the  waters  right  and  left  than  the 
Lord  God  made  with  his  commonplace  east  wind ;  but, 
after  all,  the  east  wind  is  a  good  deal  of  a  blow.  Even 
Dr.  Talmage  can  not  belittle  it,  nor  does  exegesis  require 
it.     It  is  enough  to  say  with  Josephus  : 

"  As  for  myself,  I  have  delivered  every  part  of  this 
history  as  I  have  found  it  in  the  sacred  books.  Kor  let 
any  one  wonder  at  the  strangeness  of  the  narration,  if  a 
way  were  discovered  to  those  men  of  old  time,  who  were 
free  from  the  wickedness  of  the  modern  ages,  whether  it 
happened  by  the  will  of  God  or  whether  it  happened  of 
its  own  accord  ;  while,  for  the  sake  of  those  that  accom- 
panied Alexander,  king  of  Macedonia,  who  yet  lived  com- 
paratively but  a  little  while  ago,  the  Pamphylian  Sea  re- 
tired and  afforded  them  a  passage  through  itself,  when 
they  had  no  other  way  to  go  ;  I  mean,  v/hen  it  was  the  will 
of  God  to  destroy  the  monarchy  of  the  Persians.  And 
this  is  confessed  to  be  true  by  all  that  have  written  about 
the  actions  of  Alexander.  But  as  to  these  events  let 
every  one  determine  as  he  pleases." 

This  explanation  of  the  devout  Jew  throws  a  flood 


THE   REAL   GENESIS.  61 

of  light  upon  Moses.  Callisthenes,  kinsman  and  pupil  of 
Aristotle  who  had  been  Alexander's  tutor,  who  accom- 
panied Alexander,  and  who  naturally  wished  to  ^ake  out 
as  big  a  story  as  he  could  for  his  master,  says  the  Pam- 
phylian  Sea  did  not  only  open  a  passage  for  Alexander,  but, 
by  rising  and  elevating  its  waters,  did  pay  him  homage  as 
its  king  !  But  the  rationalistic  and  philosophic  Strabo, 
removed  by  three  centuries  from  the  temptation  to  flatter 
Alexander,  explains  that  between  the  mountain  and  the 
sea  there  is  a  narrow  passage  along  the  shore,  dry  at 
low  water,  or  in  calm  weather,  so  as  to  be  passable  by 
travelers,  but  when  the  sea  is  high  it  is  overflowed.  The 
mountain  ascent  being  steep  and  winding,  in  still  weather 
they  use  the  coast  road.  But  Alexander,  who  depended 
much  upon  his  good  fortune,  came  in  the  winter  season, 
and  rushed  forward  impetuously,  without  staying  till 
the  floods  were  abated,  and  marched  his  men  through  it 
a  whole  day  up  to  the  waist  in  water. 

Arrian,  not  only  a  historian  but  a  statesman  and  a 
soldier,  combines  piety  and  philosophy,  though  living  in 
a  day  when  Christians  were  accounted  atheists  :  ^^When 
Alexander  removed  from  Phaselis,  he  sent  some  part 
of  his  army  over  the  mountains  to  Perga,  which  road 
the  Thracians  showed  him.  A  difficult  way  it  was,  but 
short.  However,  he  himself  conducted  those  that  were 
with  him  by  the  sea-shore.  This  road  is  impassable  at 
any  other  time  than  when  the  north  wind  blows  ;  but  if 
the  south  wind  prevail,  there  is  no  passing  by  the  shore. 
Now  at  this  time,  after  strong  south  winds,  a  north  wind 
blew,  and  that  not  without  the  Divine  Providence  (as 
both  he  and  they  that  were  with  him  supposed),  and 
afforded  him  an  easy  and  a  quick  passage.'' 

Appian  also  gives  the  modern  Christian  view.  Com- 
paring Caesar  and  Alexander,  he  says  :  **  They  both  de- 
pended upon  their  boldness  and  fortune  as  much  as  on 


62  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

their  skill  in  war.  As  an  instance  of  which,  Alexander 
journeyed  over  a  country  without  water,  in  the  heat  of 
summer,  to  the  oracle  of  (Jupiter)  Hammon,  and  quickly 
passed  over  the  bay  of  Pamphylia,  when,  by  Divine  Provi- 
dence, the  sea  was  cut  off  :  thus  Providence  restrainino- 
the  sea  on  his  account,  as  it  had  sent  him  rain  when  he 
traveled  over  the  desert." 

Plutarch  says  :  ''His  march  through  Pamphylia  has 
afforded  matter  to  many  historians  for  pompous  descrip- 
tion, as  if  it  was  by  the  interposition  of  Heaven  that  the 
sea  retired  before  Alexander,  which  at  other  times  ran 
there  with  so  strong  a  current  that  the  breaker  rocks  at 
the  foot  of  the  mountain  very  seldom  were  left  bare. 

'^Menander,  in  his  pleasant  way,  refers  to  this  pre- 
tended miracle  in  one  of  his  comedies  : 

'  How  like  great  Alexander  !  do  I  seek 
A  friend  ?     Spontaneous  he  presents  himself. 
Have  I  to  march  where  seas  indignant  roll  ? 
The  sea  retires,  and  there  I  march.' 

But  Alexander  himself,  in  his  epistles,  makes  no  miracle 
of  it  ;  he  only  says  he  '  marched  from  Phaselis  by  the 
way  called  Climax.'" 

Langhorne,  who  stands  sponsor  for  Plutarch,  says: 
'^Josephus  refers  to  this  passage  of  Alexander  to  gain 
the  more  credit  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  to  the 
passage  of  the  Israelites  through  the  Red  Sea." 

But  Whiston,  espousing  the  cause  of  Josephus,  de- 
clares Plutarch's  reflections  entirely  uncalled  for  :  that 
all  the  more  numerous  original  historians  of  Alexander 
gave  the  same  account  of  the  providential  going  back  of 
the  waters  of  the  Pamphylian  Sea,  so  that  Josephus  was 
not  only  justified  in  giving  his  narrative,  but  would  not 
have  been  justified  in  withholding  it.  But  as  to  these 
events,  let  us  imitate  the  moderation  of  Josephus,  and  let 
every  one  determine  as  he  pleases — meaning  as  he  must. 


THE   REAL   GENESIS.  ^3 

Will  you  stand  by  the  red  Bible  and  the  rock  wall 
and  be  orthodox,  or  will  you  accej^t  the  Red  8ea  and  the 
sand-bar  and  be  a  rationalist  ?  Or  w^ill  you  accept  the 
exegesis  of  the  Arabs  who  pointed  out  to  a  member  of 
this  class  the  exact  spot  where  the  Israelites  crossed  ? 

''  But  is  not  the  water  very  deep  there  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  yes.  It  is  deepest  there.  But  we  wished  to 
make  the  miracle  as  great  as' possible  !" 

Or  will  you  interpret  the  red  Bible  by  the  Red  Sea 
and  be  a  rational  orthodox  Christian,  thanking  God  for 
the  light  that  has  streamed  down  from  those  far-off  days 
to  us  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the  earth  are  come  ? 

These  events — the  destruction  of  the  cities  of  the 
plain  ;  the  red  sunsets  of  that  memorable  day  which  en- 
abled the  great  general  of  the  Hebrews  to  follow  up  his 
victory  to  the  destruction  as  well  as  the  rout  of  his  foes  ; 
the  emancipation  of  a  panic-stricken  nation  of  slaves  by 
the  overthrow  of  a  powerful  and  splendid  army,  the  flower 
of  Egypt's  wealth  and  pride  and  absolutism — these  were 
great  events.  The  fame  of  them  overspread  the  ancient 
world.  They  were  celebrated  in  song.  They  became  im- 
bedded in  literature.  Their  state  and  splendor  and  grand- 
eur, their  wide  and  wild  disaster,  the  height  of  their 
power,  and  the  completeness  of  their  wreck,  compassed 
every  note  in  the  gamut  of  tragedy  and  made  their  story 
a  song  of  the  world's  eternal  possession.  But  it  was  re- 
ligion that  found  the  key,  it  was  religion  that  tuned  the 
lyre,  it  was  religion  that  held  the  harmony  through  three 
thousand  years  of  warring  and  waning  discord,  till  now 
all  the  passion  and  pain  are  lulled  to  peace,  and  we  blend 
our  voices  in  what  was  the  enduring  inspiration  of  their 
song  :  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest ! " 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   KIXG   OF   SALEM. 

Beloved,  Sprite  and  Psyche,  winged  from  some  airier 
sphere  than  this  and  poising  here  in  pain  and  darkness, 
longing  for  native  light,  of  native  love  sore  bereft — you, 
peering  passionately  into  the  abyss  in  search  of  your  van- 
ished sunbeam,  question  me  why  I  can  be  so  jubilant  over 
the  '^  oldest  book  in  the  world,"  when  it  shows  that,  be- 
fore the  days  of  Abraham,  there  was  a  system  of  morality 
comiDrising  everything  that  Christ  taught ;  and  that  those 
precepts,  handed  down  traditionally,  might  have  been 
given  Christ,  a  boy,  by  any  of  the  old  wandering  desert 
people  inheriting  them. 

Verily,  first,  if  incidentally,  I  exult,  because  through 
this  I  learn  how  closely  the  error  of  the  dear  past  ages 
wraps  us  all  around.  I,  rooted  in  Puritanism,  Calvinism, 
St.  Augustinism,  by  long  ancestry  and  close  training, 
may  well  be  hide-bound  with  theological  theory  ;  but  you, 
Sprite  and  Psyche — pure  soul,  pure  heart.  Flower  o'  the 
Peach,  Flower  o'  the  Sun — how  came  you  to  be  meshed 
in  men's  devices,  so  that  when  you  would  soar  toward 
native  light  your  white  wings  may  not  stir  ? 

Yet  so  it  is.  Of  things  as  they  are,  of  Christianity 
pure  and  simple,  we  scarcely  hear.  What  we  are  chiefly 
taught  is  the  opinions  which  many  generations  have 
formed  about  Christianit3\  When  any  part  of  these 
opinions  is  seen  to  be  false,  and  begins  to  be  reft  away. 


THE  KING  OF  SALEM.  65 

the  cry  is  that  Christianity  lies  bleeding — that  another 
assault  has  been  made  upon  it  ! 

Whereas  Christianity  has  not  been  in  question.  What 
Origen,  or  Augustine,  or  Leo  Tenth,  or  Archbishop  Whate- 
ly,  or  Matthew  Arnold,  or  Enoch  Pond  interpreted  as 
Christianity  may  have  been  scrutinized,  but  the  body  of 
Divinity  i^  unscathed. 

In  your  question  I  read  your  unwritten  creed  :  that 
the  world  lay  in  darkness  outside  of  Christ  and  of  the  one 
moonglade  that  led  back  from  him  to  the  plains  of  Mamre 
and  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.  Therefore,  whatever  shows  moral 
light  outside  that  narrow  pathway  tends  to  subvert  the 
Christ. 

Listen  now,  you  who  have  read  and  heard  so  much, 
to  the  truth  of  history,  and  welcome  Ptah-Hotep,  because 
he  confirms,  in  detail  and  from  remote  antiquity,  a  world- 
theory  which  reason  imperiously  frames,  and  which  slight 
but  clear  historical  glimpses  in  the  Bible  as  imperiously 
necessitate. 

Let  us  scan  first  the  very  earliest  of  the  Bible  glimpses, 
because  we  have  known  Melchizedek  much  longer  than  we 
have  known  Ptah-Hotep. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  important  of  the 
great  historic  movements  of  humanity  is  the  emigration 
of  the  celebrated  Emir  Abram.  Yet  it  was  but  the  march 
of  a  single  sheik  but  a  few  hundred  miles  to  the  south- 
west. 

The  original  motive  of  this  migration  is  known  to  his- 
tory and  theology  as  the  call  of  God  to  Abram.  The  best 
explanation  concerning  the  nature  of  this  call  we  get  from 
the  pulpit,  which  constantly  teaches  that  we  are  called  by 
God  to  missionary  and  other  duty,  just  as  Abram  was. 
It  follows  as  the  night  the  day,  that  if  we  are  called  as 
Abram  was,  then  Abram  was  called  as  we  are.  God 
spoke  to  Abram  as  God  speaks  to  us.     If  he  did  not,  if 

5 


QQ  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

there  was  any  special  divine  appearance,  any  special  ver- 
bal communication  out  of  the  spiritual  heavens,  then 
Abram's  obedience  has  no  moral  lesson  for  us,  and  his 
career  gives  us  no  guidance.  If  Abram  had  a  direct,  un- 
mistakable order  from  a  higher  power,  he  did  not  walk 
by  faith  but  by  knowledge.  It  is  not  faith  which  sees 
and  hears  God  by  the  bodily  senses  ;  it  is  sight.  Faith  is 
the  evidence  of  things  7iot  seen.  We  alone  live  by  faith 
who  have  not  seen  Jind  yet  believe ;  and  if  we  can  not 
fully  believe,  think  we  are  at  least  permitted  to  hope. 

The  testimony  of  the  Bible  justifies  the  teaching  of 
the  pulpit.  The  first  narrative  relates  that  "the  Lord 
had  said  unto  Abram,  Get  thee  out  of  thy  country 
[Haran],  and  from  thy  kindred,  and  from  thy  father's 
house,  unto  a  land  that  I  will  show  thee." 

Stephen,  in  the  bold,  glowing,  indignant  speech  which 
angered  a  hostile  church  to  his  violent  death,  says  :  *'  The 
God  of  glory  appeared  to  our  Father  Abram  when  he  was 
in  Mesopotamia  before  he  dwelt  in  Haran." 

That  this  can  not  mean  the  literal  call  through  the 
ear  and  appearance  to  the  eye,  the  same  ancient  book 
teaches  with  great  emphasis,  declaring  that  no  man  can 
see  God  and  live.  And  the  latest  of  the  Bible  writers 
strengthens  the  statement :  "No  man  hath  seen  God  at 
any  time.  The  only  begotten  Son  which  is  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Father,  he  hath  declared  him." 

We  are  not,  however,  left  to  a  negative.  The  original 
narrative,  to  which  we  have  just  as  ready  and  free  access 
as  had  Stephen,  gives  only  a  simple  story  of  the  migration 
of  a  family  :  "  Terah  took  Abram  his  son,  and  Lot  the 
son  of  Haran  his  son's  son,  and  Sarai  his  daughter-in-law, 
his  son  Abram's  wife  ;  and  they  went  forth  with  them 
from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan  ; 
and  they  came  unto  Haran,  and  dwelt  there." 

There  is  no  word  or  hint  of  any  miraculous  or  unusual 


THE   KING   OF  SALEM.  g7 

appearance  or  call  of  God.  It  is  precisely  as  one  would 
say  :  Manasseli  Cutler  took  his  wife  Mary  and  his  son 
Temple,  and  Mary  his  daughter-in-law,  and  Grace  his 
granddaughter,  and  went  from  Hamilton,  in  Essex  Coun- 
ty, to  Marietta  on  the  Muskingum,  and  beheld  the  land 
that  it  was  fair.  And  just  as  Manasseh  Cutler,  if  he  had 
so  willed,  might  have  named  the  town  which  he  founded 
Marietta,  for  his  wife  Mary,  so  may  Terah,  the  fond  and 
sorrowing  father,  have  named  the  city  of  his  new  found- 
ing Haran,  for  the  beloved  son  who  died  before  his  father 
in  the  land  of  his  nativity,  in  Ur  of  the  Clialdees ;  and 
the  grief  and  desolation  of  whose  untimely  death  may 
have  been  one  of  the  ways  in  which  God  appeared  to  the 
bereaved  father  and  brother,  predisposing  them  to  abandon 
their  stricken  home  for  the  distraction  of  new  scenes. 
Stephen's  piety  attributed  the  leadership  to  God,  just  as 
our  pulpits  would  say  that  Mr.  Cutler  was  led  by  God  to 
the  Ohio  migration  and  settlement. 

In  the  spirited  and  magnificent  appeal  of  a  poet  of  the 
same  blood,  of  a  later  time,  but  still  of  a  remote  antiquity, 
the  exact  nature  of  Abram's  call  is  even  more  distinctly 
implied  :  "  Who  raised  up  the  righteous  man  from  the 
East,  called  him  to  his  foot,  gave  the  nations  before  him, 
and  made  him  rule  over  kings  ?  .  .  .  Who  hath  wrought 
and  done  it,  calling  the  generations  from  the  beginning  ? 
I,  the  Lord." 

The  call  of  Abram  and  the  call  of  the  generations  are 
classed  together  as  of  one  and  the  same  kind. 

Joseph us's  account  of  the  nature  of  the  call  of  God  to 
Abraham,  containing  as  it  does  a  record  of  the  gradual 
conce2:)tion  of  the  true  God  in  Abraham's  mind,  is  rational 
and  most  interesting  after  thousands  of  years  of  literal 
and  forced  interpretation.  Abraham,  says  Josephus,  was 
a  person  of  great  sagacity,  both  for  understanding  all 
things  and  persuading  his  hearers,  and  not  mistaken  in 


68  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

his  opinions ;  for  which  reason  he  began  to  haye  higher 
notions  of  virtue  than  others  had,  and  he  determined  to 
renew  and  to  change  the  opinion  all  men  happened  then 
to  have  concerning  God  ;  for  he  was  the  first  that  ven 
tured  to  publish  this  notion  that  there  was  but  one  God 
the  Creator  of  the  Universe  ;  and  that  as  to  other  [gods] 
if  they  contributed  anything  to  the  happiness  of  men 
each  of  them  afforded  it  only  according  to  his  apj)oint 
ment  and   not  by  his  own  power.      This,   his  opinion 
was  derived  from  the   irregular   phenomena  that  were 
visible  both  at  land  and  sea,  as  well  as  those  that  happen 
to  the  sun  and  moon  and  all  the  heavenly  bodies.  .  .  . 
Tor  which  doctrines,  when  the  Chaldeans  and  other  peo- 
ple  of   Meso])otamia   raised   a  tumult   against  him,  he 
thought  tit  to  leave  that  country  ;  and  at  the  command 
and  by  the  assistance  of  God  he  came  and  lived  in  the 
land  of  Canaan. 

We  may  therefore  believe  that  the  appearance  of 
God  to  Abraham  was  such  as  all  may  have  who  follow 
the  Highest.  God  appeared  to  Abram  at  Mesopotamia  in 
fraternal  love  and  filial  duty  and  sympathy,  in  family 
faith  and  steadfastness.  Abram  was  called  of  God  through 
the  purity  and  piety  of  his  character,  through  the  energy 
of  his  nature,  through  the  restlessness  or  adventurousness 
of  his  spirit,  through  the  grace  and  glory  of  his  ambition, 
through  the  irrepressible  impulse  and  forecast  of  genius. 
The  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  Abram  just  as  the  word 
of  the  Lord  by  night  to  the  marching  Pilgrims  came. 
God  said,  '^Get  thee  out  of  thy  country,"  just  as  God 
said,  ''  I  am  tired  of  kings,"  or  rather  it  may  have  come 
in  this  way.  There  is  nothing  in  the  Bible  which  for- 
bids such  interpretation.  It  puts  no  strain  upon  words, 
either  the  words  of  Moses  or  the  words  of  Emerson.  We 
instinctively  interpret  it  thus  in  reading  Emerson,  and 
there  is  no  heterodoxy  or  heresy  in  so  interpreting  the 


THE   KIXG   OF   SALEM.  69 

biograplier  of  Abram.  If  our  individual  judgment  were 
left  as  free  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  doubtless  God 
would  have  spoken  with  the  same  voice  in  both. 

The  Bible  writers  were  so  saturated  with  the  Divine 
Spirit,  so  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  in  all  things 
the}^  heard  the  voice  and  saw  the  will  of  God ;  just  as 
Spencer  and  Huxley  and  Tyndall  see  everywhere  the 
working  of  an  energy  which  they  dare  not  name.  The 
world  in  the  course  of  ages,  at  various  times  in  various 
places,  so  lost  this  divine  inspiration  and  illumination 
as  not  even  to  be  able  to  understand  it.  The  profound 
and  intimate  reverence  of  the  Scriptural  writers  became 
/^overset"  into  mechanical  theories  of  sense  and  matter, 
coarse,  clumsy,  inelastic,  and  untenable.  Men  read  *'  God 
spake,"  and  began  to  explain  how  he  spoke  ;  and  the  peo- 
ple who  did  not  accept  their  explanation  were  reckoned 
in  the  same  category  with  men  who  do  not  believe  that 
God  exists.  Not  to  believe  that  God  speaks  as  Calvin, 
or  Servetus,  or  Loyola,  or  Edward  Everett  Hale  says  he 
speaks,  is  not  to  believe  in  God. 

The  carelessness  with  which  we  teach  the  Bible  is 
succinctly  displayed  in  a  single  paragraph  from  the  lips 
of  a  president  of  an  educational  institution  : 

"As  God  had  taken  pains  to  summon  Abraham  away 
from  his  idolatrous  neighbors  in  Chaldea,  and  afterward 
to  separate  him  from  low-lived  Lot,  sending  him  forth 
childless  to  the  promised  land  to  secure  an  uncontami- 
nated  stock,  so  Abraham  himself  solemnly  responded  to 
the  divine  intention  by  keeping  himself  clear  of  all  his 
idolatrous  surroundings  in  Palestine,  and  seeking  a  wife 
for  his  son  far  away  in  his  brother's  home  in  Mesopo- 
tamia. .   .  . 

'*  During  his  long  life  the  patriarch  repeatedly  changed 
his  residence." 

How  a  pure  stock  could  be  secured  by  removing  from 


70  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

one  contaminated  district  to  another  does  not  appear. 
Abraham  did  in  Palestine  what  he  could  have  done  more 
easily  in  Ctialdea — sought  a  wife  for  his  son  in  his  own 
family.  It  certainly  was  not  necessary  for  them  to  emi- 
grate in  order  to  intermarry.  They  might  all  have  re- 
mained comfortably  at  home  in  Ohaldea. 

Does  not  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  removals  lie  in 
Abraham's  nomadic  character,  and  in  his  towering,  aspir- 
ing genius  for  the  apprehension  of  God  ?  In  repeatedly 
changing  his  residence,  was  he  not  simply  acting  after  his 
kind  ?  We  can  trace  the  purposes  of  God  in  history  ; 
but  to  do  this  accurately  we  must  be  heedful  of  facts.  In 
this  case  the  only  true  philosophy  seems  to  lie  in  the  un- 
regarded final  statement. 

But  the  Bible  writers  laid  the  world  no  nearer  to  God 
than  modern  Science  lays  it  to  the  inscrutable  and  omni- 
present force  which  she  ventures  not  to  personify. 

The  migration  of  Abram  was  eminently  successful, 
lie  prospered  in  substance,  family,  and  fame.  Bearing 
liimself  always  with  dignity,  courtesy,  magnanimity,  and, 
generally,  with  truthfulness  and  honor,  he  secured  the 
deference  of  his  neighbors,  the  friendship  of  nobles,  the 
comradeship  of  kings.  When,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
day,  it  happened  that  his  nephew  was  taken  prisoner  in 
war,  Abram  could  arm  servants  enough  of  his  own  house- 
hold to  pursue  the  victorious  kings,  give  battle,  and  effect 
a  rescue. 

It  was  upon  his  return  from  this  brilliant  exploit  that 
an  incident  occurred,  slight  in  itself,  simple  and  natural, 
yet  attaining  a  world-wide  celebrity  from  its  illustrative 
use  in  the  Jewish  church  ;  a  revelation  to  us  of  the  un- 
known prehistoric  world,  but  not,  as  has  sometimes  been 
supposed,  a  revelation  of  the  unknown  spiritual  world. 

And  the  '^  King  of  Sodom  went  out  to  meet  Abram 
(after  his  return  from  the  slaughter  of  Chedorlaomer  and 


THE   KING  OF   SALEM.  Yl 

of  tlie  kings  that  were  with  liim)  at  the  Valley  of  Shaveh, 
which  is  the  king's  dale.  And  Melchizedek,  King  of 
Salem,  brought  forth  bread  and  wine ;  and  he  was  the 
priest  of  the  most  high  God.  And  he  blessed  him  and 
said  :  ^  Blessed  be  Abram  of  the  most  high  God,  possessor 
of  heaven  and  earth  ;  and  blessed  be  the  most  high  God 
which  hath  delivered  thine  enemies  into  thy  hand.'  And 
he  gave  him  tithes  of  all."  • 

It  is  simplicity  and  lucidity  itself;  yet  so  bent  is 
human  vision  on  seeing  around  a  corner  instead  of 
looking  along  the  straight  lines  of  inexorable  law  that 
most  of  us  fail  to  discern  the  light  that  shines  through 
the  narrative,  in  hereditary  determination  to  discover  a 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  shore.  Because  Melchize- 
dek was  used  among  the  Jewish  writers  to  illustrate 
Christ,  we  insist  that  he  was  some  mysterious  and  mirac- 
ulous person,  some  being  of  a  higher  order  than  ours, 
sent  from  the  spiritual  heavens  as  an  antetype  of  Christ, 
inexplicable,  but  perhaps,  therefore,  divine.  One  dear 
theologian  I  know  who,  driven  from  the  external  errors 
of  her  hereditary  faith,  step  by  step,  clings  to  this  divine 
and  miraculous  Melchizedek  as  her  last  fortification ;  and 
even  you,  Sprite  and  Psyche,  Flower  o'  the  Peach,  Flower 
o'  the  Sun,  who  might  be  supposed  never  to  have  heard 
of  Melchizedek  in  your  garden  of  lilies  and  roses— even 
you  say,  sighing  :  **  Christ  was  necessary  as  the  renewing 
of  the  type  of  Melchizedek  very  likely,"  with  the  air  of 
one  who,  under  strong  radical  temptation,  has  made  a 
conservative  concession. 

Flower  o'  the  Sun,  what  have  you  to  do  with  the  type 
of  Melchizedek  ?  You  are  no  Jew,  bound  to  the  horns 
of  the  altar  !  You  may  accept  Christ  or  you  may  reject 
him  ;  but  if  you  reject  him,  it  will  not  be  because,  like 
Paul's  hearers,  you  cling  to  the  Levitic  priesthood  and 
the  burnt-offerings.     You  need  no  pra3-Levitic  type  to 


72  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

justify  an  extra-Levitic  priesthood.  Priesthood  itself  is 
a  thing  of  the  past ! 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  the  armory  whence  we 
draw  our  weapons  of  mischief ;  but  what  does  that  epis- 
tle say  ? 

The  letter  is  accredited  to  Paul.  In  closeness  of  rea- 
soning, in  facility  of  illustration,  in  cleverness,  courtesy, 
and  tact,  it  is  worthy  of  Paul ;  but  we  are  not  concerned 
as  to  who  wrote  it,  only  as  to  what  it  teaches. 

The  object  of  the  writer  was  to  dismiss  and  even  to 
destroy  forever  the  whole  prevailing,  active,  firm-rooted 
theological  system  of  the  Jews  whom  he  was  addressing — 
altar,  sacrifice,  priesthood — and  to  substitute  for  it  Chris- 
tianity, the  w^orship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  He 
was  a  radical  reformer,  far  more  subversive  than  Luther, 
of  the  system  in  which  he  found  himself ;  yet  his  methods 
singularly  and  suavely  ilhistrate  the  truth  of  Christ :  I  am 
not  come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill.  This  radical  reformer, 
as  wise  as  radical,  instead  of  directly  attacking  what  he 
wished  to  remove,  adopted  the  truth  which  lay  at  the 
heart  of  it — the  longing  to  approach  God — and  which 
had  given  it  the  vitality  to  endure  for  two  thousand 
years,  and  this  germ-truth  he  reclothed  in  the  spiritual 
guise  of  the  new  day ;  not  mechanically,  from  without, 
after  man's  way,  but  growth-wise,  from  within,  God's 
way. 

The  Jewish  nation  was  priest-ridden  ;  but  Paul,  as  we 
will  call  the  writer  for  convenience,  did  not  denounce  the 
priesthood,  but  suggested  that  all  priestly  function  had 
been  transferred,  once  and  forever,  to  Christ.  Paul  did 
not  bid  them  stop  the  daily  degradation  of  brutal  and 
bloody  sacrifices,  but  suggested  that  Christ  made  the  suf- 
ficient sacrifice  once  for  all  when  he  offered  up  himself. 
The  Levitic  priests  were  many,  because  they  were  not 
suffered  to  continue  by  reason   of  death  ;  but   Christ, 


THE  KING  OF  SALEM.  73 

througli  the  power  of  an  endless  life,  hatli  an  micliange- 
able  priesthood. 

But  there  was  the  imperative  Jewish  law  that  a  priest 
must  be  of  the  house  of  Levi,  To  meet  this  comes  the 
full  sweep  and  swing  of  the  argument  lifting  the  ques- 
tion above  the  level  of  Jewish  ritual  into  the  wide, 
clear  heights  of  the  universal  world.  David  had  given 
the  indisputable  key-note,  and  Paul  took  up  the  refrain 
and  rang  the  new  song  loud,  full,  unerring,  over  the  whole 
land  of  Judea  and  the  far  unlistening  future  :  "A  priest 
forever  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek  !  " 

What  was  the  order  of  Melchizedek  ?  It  was  no  order 
at  all.  In  that  lay  the  whole  point  and  pith  of  the  illus- 
tration. In  that  lay  all  the  quality  which  made  him  an 
antetype  of  Christ.  The  Jew  believed  that  salvation  was 
of  the  Jews,  and  that  the  salvation  of  the  Jews  was  of  the 
house  of  Levi.  This  Paul  refuted  by  their  own  sacred 
Pentateuch,  which  declared  Melchizedek  a  priest,  and 
their  own  sacred  psalms  of  the  great  king,  which  con- 
firmed his  priesthood  ;  yet  they  knew  that  Melchizedek 
was  not  even  a  Hebrew,  much  less  a  Levite.  He  was 
outside  the  whole  line  of  HebrcAV  blood,  race,  church 
traditions  ;  he  belonged  to  the  world.  He  was  cos- 
mopolitan and  not  tribal.  So  far  from  belonging  to  the 
tribe  of  Levi,  nobody  knew  to  whom  he  belonged— Paul, 
his  correspondents,  David,  Moses,  no  more  than  we.  In 
genealogy,  history,  biography,  he  was  without  father, 
without  mother,  without  descent,  having  neither  begin- 
ning of  days  nor  end  of  life.  For  the  Jews,  as  for  us,  he 
stepped  out  of  absolute  darkness  for  one  dazzling  moment, 
robed  in  light,  and  immediately  withdrew  into  the  black 
unknown.  But  because  that  radiant  moment  revealed 
him  a  priest  of  the  most  high  God,  a  priest  of  the  most 
high  God  he  abideth  continually. 

^furthermore,  Paul  clinches  his  argument  to  his  He- 


74  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

brew  hearers,  this  priest,  outside  the  line  of  Hebrew 
ties  and  appointments,  attested  a  priest  by  Moses  and  by 
David,  was  greater  than  any  Jewish  priest,  greater  even 
than  their  great  father  and  founder  Abram.  It  was  a 
hard  doctrine  to  preach  to  the  haughtiest  and  most  ex- 
clusive people  under  the  sun;  yet  Paul  not  only  preached 
it,  but  proved  it  out  of  their  own  sacred  annals.  *^  Con- 
sider how  great  this  man  was,"  he  says  to  his  reluctant 
listeners,  *^unto  whom  even  the  patriarch  Abraham  gave 
the  tenth  of  the  spoils.  The  Levites  take  tithes  of  the 
people  according  to  law  ;  but  this  man,  whose  descent  is 
not  counted  from  the  Levites,  received  tithes  of  Abra- 
ham, and  blessed  him ;  and,  without  all  contradiction, 
the  less  is  blessed  of  the  better.  Abram,  who  paid  tithes, 
was  less  than  Melchizedek,  who  received  them.  Melchize- 
dek,  who  pronounced  the  blessing,  was  greater  than  Abram, 
who  received  it." 

The  argument  for  Christ  and  against  the  Levitic  priest- 
hood was,  on  Hebrew  grounds,  overwhelming.  This  one 
admitted  fact  of  Jewish  history — that  there  was  a  priest- 
hood of  God  other  and  greater  than  the  priesthood  of 
Levi,  that  there  had  been  a  king  of  nations  greater  than 
their  greatest  leader,  and  as  near  to  God— disposed  for- 
ever of  the  Jewish  claim  that  theirs  was  the  only  true 
religious  worship,  that  their  priesthood  was  all-adequate 
and  exclusive,  that  their  system  was  perfect  and  per- 
petual. 

If  the  Jewish  system  were  adequate  and  Christ  super- 
fluous, as  the  Hebrews  argued,  why,  asked  Paul,  was 
there  a  priesthood  of  Melchizedek  outside  the  Jewish  sys- 
tem ?  He  did  not,  nor  do  we,  deny  the  special  mission  of 
the  Jewish  nation.  It  was  to  cradle  the  Messiah.  It 
was  to  conserve  the  word  of  righteousness.  That  each 
nation  has  its  special  mission  is  a  thought  as  old  as 
Clement  and  Lactantius,  probably  as  old  as  Ptah-Hotep's 


THE  KING   OF  SALEM.  75 

ancients.  But  the  special  mission  of  the  Jews  was  dis- 
charged in  Christ.  The  word  of  righteousness  was  thence- 
forth to  be  upheld  by  the  whole  world. 

What  is  Melchizedek  to  us  ?  As  a  type  of  Christ, 
nothing.  We  have  no  faith  in  Urim  and  Thummim. 
We  came  out — no,  we  were  never  under — the  bonds  of 
the  Jewish  priesthood. 

Yet  for  us,  too,  Melchizedek,  priest  of  the  most  high 
God,  opens  wide  the  doors  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
That  one  moment  of  his  emergence  from  the  ancient 
unknown  world,  his  face  alight  with  God,  his  hands  up- 
lifted with  blessing,  floods  the  whole  earth  with  the  glory 
of  the  universal  fatherhood.  We  long  ago  threw  off  the 
bonds  of  the  Jewish  law ;  but  that  iron-bound  exclusive- 
ness  in  which  the  Jews  sought  to  cramp  eternal  righteous- 
ness has  reappeared  in  a  visible  and  fallible  Christian 
Church  seeking  to  bind  the  gospel  of  Christ  to  its  own 
interpretations  and  ministrations,  seeking  to  limit  the 
fatherhood  of  God  to  a  special  association.  But  all  the 
weakness  and  narrowness  of  vision  which  sees  divine  reve- 
lation flowing  toward  humanity  only  through  the  narrow 
channel,  the  one  thread-like  and  often  turbid  rill  of  the 
Judean  and  the  Christian  theology,  melts  and  disappears 
in  the  pure  white  glow  of  this  heavenly  beam.  While 
Abram  was  yet  a  wanderer  in  a  legendary  past  so  far,  so 
faint,  that  its  tracery  we  hardly  discern,  its  language  we 
but  little  understand,  we  see  another  nation  serving  the 
most  high  God,  a  king  who,  in  very  name,  is  king  of 
righteousness,  king  of  peace. 

There  seems  to  be  unfolded  in  this  beautiful  tradition 
a  correspondence  as  significant  as  it  is  exquisite ;  so 
slight,  so  incidental,  that  it  must  be  historical  as  well  as 
poetical. 

The  defeated  King  of  Sodom,  whom  Abram  avenged 
and  befriended,  went  out  to  meet  him  at  the  King's  Dale. 


Y6  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

The  spot  selected  by  the  splendid,  spoiled  Absalom  to  rear 
a  pillar  to  himself  was  also  the  King's  Dale.  Therefore 
it  was  probably  near  the  capital  city,  Jerusalem  the 
Golden  ;  wherefore  it  seems  probable  that  the  King  of 
Salem  held  his  royal  residence  and  his  pure  court  at  the 
very  spot  where  afterward  rose  the  Holy  City  of  the  w^orld. 
Melchizedek,  before  history  began,  worshiping  not  the 
God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  but  the  God  of  his 
own  fathers,  upon  the  Holy  Mountain,  left  in  his  depart- 
ing the  blessing  of  his  yanishing  age  upon  the  new  time ; 
blessed  it  and  baptized  it  with  his  own  name  of  righteous- 
ness and  peace. 

How  many  more  such  nations  and  such  kings  gave  its 
strength  of  life  to  the  ancient  world  we  do  not  yet  know  ; 
but  here  comes  one  from  his  burial  of  centuries,  Ptah- 
Hotep,  with  his  book  in  his  hand,  testifying,  and  to  the 
satisfaction  even  of  French  skeptics,  that  in  our  night 
of  the  long  ago,  before  Jew  or  Gentile  had  analyzed  them- 
selves out  of  the  human  race,  God,  the  Creative  Force, 
Absolute  Being,  Eternal  Energy,  had  given  man  power 
and  light  to  organize  society.  Ptah-Hotep  stands  before 
us  from  the  ages  preceding  Abraham  as  clearly  outlined, 
as  firmly  colored,  as  delicately  shaded,  as  if  Cabanal  had 
drawn  the  picture  yesterday — a  calm,  firm,  generous,  re- 
fined gentleman. 

Ptah-Hotep  reveals  to  us  a  society  of  scholars,  teach- 
ers, artists,  judges,  police,  farmers,  sailors,  pilots — the 
classifications  of  long-established  social  order.  In  his 
pages  we  see  the  well-conducted  household — the  father 
deserving  and  receiving  the  reverence  of  his  children  ; 
the  one  wife  tenderly  loved  and  honored  ;  children  trained 
gently  in  obedience  and  knowledge  ;  we  see  bad  morals 
abhorred  as  death  ;  law  supreme  ;  authority  respected. 

The  Proverbs  of  Solomon  and  the  Proverbs  of  Ptah- 
Hotep  are  from  the  same  fountain  of  wisdom  : 


THE  KING  OF  SALEM.  Y7 

"He  who  is  master  of  his  own  spirit  is  superior  to 
him  whom  God  has  loaded  with  his  gifts." 

Act  "as  a  steward  of  the  goods  belonging  to  God. 

"  Love  thy  people. 

*^Eeturn  a  gentle  answer. 

'*  Forget  the  wrong. 

^^  Be  kind  to  all. 

"  Do  not  contemn  or  ridicule  men  even  when  wronsr. 

"Beware  of  pride,  of  hal-dness  of  heart,  of  oppressing 
others,  of  bad  temper,  of  scandal,  of  libertinism." 

Ptah-Hotep's  theology  is  occasionally  a  little  obscure, 
as  if  the  clear  image  of  the  most  high  God  were  some- 
what blurred.  Nevertheless,  with  gods  he  recognizes  one 
God.  All  that  man  has,  he  teaches,  is  the  gift  of  God. 
All  is  held  at  the  will  of  God.  He  believes  in  prayer, 
and  accounts  himself  beloved  of  God,  as  Abram  was 
called  the  friend  of  God.  He  holds  that  God's  will  to- 
ward men  is  that  they  should  have  life  with  peace  ;  the 
same  song  which  the  angels  sang  over  Bethlehem.  God 
wars  against  the  oppressor,  and  a  pure  morality  alone  can 
please  him.  A  noble  conception  of  a  Supreme  Being,  a 
lofty  code  of  ethics,  a  system  of  spiritual  religion,  we 
gather  from  the  pages  of  this  prince  of  Egypt  before 
the  Bible  history  of  the  Jewish  or  of  the  Christian  relig- 
ion began. 

And  be  it  observed  that  to  Ptah-Hotep  the  world  was 
as  old  as  it  is  to  us.  He  certifies  that  the  law  of  true  mo- 
rality has  been  perfect  from  the  earliest  times,  lecause  it 
is  of  divine  origin.  It  must,  therefore,  also  remain  un- 
changed. Himself  as  remote  as  the  Pyramids,  he  yet 
appeals  to  the  authority  of  the  ancients.  He  fortifies  his 
own  position  by  showing  that  they,  too,  inculcate  the  study 
of  wisdom,  duty  to  parents,  respect  for  property,  charita- 
bleness, peaceableness,  content,  liberality,  humility,  chas- 
tity, sobriety,  truthfulness,  justice  ;  that  they,  too,  depre- 


78  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

cate  the  wickedness  and  folly  of  disobedience,  strife,  arro- 
gance, pride,  slotlifulness,  intemperance,  un chastity. 

Thus  Ptah-Hotep  testifies  with  Melchizedek  to  the 
only  satisfactory  world-theory  ;  not  that  the  Jews  were  a 
chosen  people,  and  all  other  peoples  were  rejected  or 
neglected  peoples  ;  but  that  to  all  peoples  God  communi- 
cated the  light  of  divine  reason.  In  the  beginning  was 
the  Word — the  Logos,  reason.  The  same  code  of  morals 
that  we  strive  to  practice  to-(Jay  the  wisdom  of  old  Egypt 
tried  to  enforce.  What  is  virtue  now  and  spiritual  grace, 
filial  duty  and  conjugal  fidelity,  was  the  same  then.  You, 
Sprite  and  Psyche,  Flower  o'  the  Peach,  Plower  o'  the 
Sun,  need  not  stay  your  light  poise  to  show  me  that 
Christ  might  have  learned  this  from  the  desert  travelers. 
The  main  thing  is  that  the  desert  travelers  knew  it. 
Melchizedek  in  sacred  history  and  Ptah-Hotep  in  profane 
history  open  the  door  into  their  ancient  world  and  reveal 
to  us  a  realm  of  order  and  morality  and  true  religion  ; 
men  seeking  God  and  finding  him  and  living  in  his  light 
and  having  joy  and  peace  in  believing.  Anterior  to 
Jewry,  outside  of  Christianity,  absolutely  unconnected 
with  either  by  visible  ties,  in  the  Bible  and  outside  of 
the  Bible,  we  see  nationalities  constructed,  organized, 
and  conducted  in  the  fear  and  the  worship  of  God. 

Thus  the  continuity  of  faith  spans  the  whole  world 
from  the  unknown  past  to  the  unknown  future  with  its 
bow  of  promise  and  of  peace.  Christ  came  into  the  world 
not  to  teach  a  new  ethics,  but  to  spiritualize  and  vitalize 
the  old,  to  bring  life  and  immortality  to  light,  to  authen- 
ticate and  accomplish  the  at-one-ment  of  humanity  with 
God  by  the  authority  of  a  divine  personality  and  the 
power  of  an  endless  life. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   IIN^STITUTES   OF   MOSES. 

An  orthodox  clergyman — old^  Uind,  past  worJo,  as  men  phrase  it — 
sat  in  Ms  easy-chair  hy  the  winter  Jireside,  walked  under  his  elms  be- 
neath the  summer  sJoy,  and  scattered  with  full  hands,  everywhere, 
anywhere,  seed-thoughts,  some  of  which  tooTc  root,  sprang  up,  and 
hore  fruit  in  the  following  exposition  of  the  institutes  of  sac- 
rifice. 

If  it  were  ever  lawful  to  relinquish  one^s  right  of  private  'judg- 
ment, this  man  of  Ood  would  have  been  by  divine  right  Pope.  Blind- 
ness had  only  closed  his  eyes  to  trivial  distractions,  and  released  his 
well-equipped  mind  to  clear  vision.  Apparently,  absolutely,  free  from 
prejudice,  seeTcing  ever  and  only  truth,  he  looked  out  upon  the  world 
of  literature,  of  theology,  of  politics,  through  no  distorting  medium  ; 
and  bringing  to  bear,  upon  all,  the  illumination  of  history,  gave 
calm  judgment,  undismayed.  Priest  and  poet  and  critic,  apostle, 
prophet,  president,  passed  before  him  in  the  pure  white  liglit  of  his 
reason,  yielded  up  their  secret  to  his  tranquil  gaze,  and  lived  hence- 
forth in  a  decision  which  was  conclusive  in  the  radiance  of  its  own 
righteousness. 

Wise  in  all  large  wisdoms,  his  only  worldly  wisdom  was  in  rele- 
gating his  personal  loelfare  to  the  wise  women  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded and  infinitely  cherished. 

Reared  under  his  tutelage,  living  in  the  sunshine  of  his  rectitude, 
the  reverence  of  the  child  but  gathered  volume  and  fixity  as  each 
crowded,  succeeding  year  showed  hoic  rare  were  his  qualities,  how 
grand  teas  their  scope,  how  undisturbed  their  balance,  how  irreversi- 
ble their  decree. 

While  the  Bible  class  were  listening  to  these  Mosaic  readings, 


80  A  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

which  were  his  in  their  original  suggestion,  his  in  their  mode  of  rea- 
soning, and  indebted  to  him  for  much  of  their  illustration, 
"  Heaven^  as  at  some  festival. 
Did  open  wide  the  gates  of  her  high  palace  hall,'''' 

and  in  that  light  he  saw  light. 

To  him,  hinsman,  teacher,  lover,,  mentor,  comrade. 
To  the  Bight  Reverend  and  Most  Reverend 

JOHK  PHELPS  COWLES, 

I  dedicate  these  sacrificial  chapters. 

Every  sacrifice  upon  every  altar,  of  first-fruits  of  the 
ground,  or  the  first-born  of  animals  or  of  human  beings,  in 
the  Bible  and  out  of  the  Bible,  from  the  earliest  recorded 
offering  by  Cain  to  the  last  path  worn  by  the  feet  of  ani- 
mals led  to  slaughter  at  the  still-standing  altars  of  Pom- 
peii— all  is  paganism. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  it  is  evil  and  only  evil  contin- 
ually. God  accepts  the  right  intent  and  the  honest  act, 
even  though  it  be  mistaken  or  imperfect.  He  estab- 
lished humanity  in  an  order  of  development,  and  he  can 
not  be  displeased  with  humanity  because  at  any  particular 
stage  of  its  career  it  has  reached  only  its  appropriate  de- 
gree of  development  and  not  the  ultimate  perfection. 

The  difference  between  Christianity  and  paganism  is 
this  :  Christianity  teaches  that  God  is  a  spirit,  and  they 
that  worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  Paganism  teaches  that  God  is  a  material,  a  condi- 
tioned being,  to  be  worshiped  with  fruits  and  beasts  and 
blood,  with  fire  and  wood  and  stone.  The  Bible  is  the 
record  of  man's  rise,  by  the  spirit  of  God  working  in  him, 
from  worship  by  wood  and  stone  and  burnt-offering,  to 
Christ,  in  whom  and  through  whom  were  destroyed  for- 
ever all  material  sacrifice,  and  by  whom  was  given  the 
final  spiritual  interpretation  toward  which  all  literal 
sacrifice  was  slowly  tending,  that  God  is  a  spirit  and  is  to 
be  worshiped  by  becoming  like  him. 


THE  INSTITUTES   OF   MOSES.  81 

The  Bible  is  not  a  revelation /rom  God  outward  and 
downward  to  man.  It  is  the  story  of  the  revelation  of 
God  171  man  forever  upward.  It  is  the  story  of  man's 
spiritual  evolution  prefaced  by  a  few  lines — outlines — 
presenting  his  material  evolution.  All  sorts  of  religion 
were  in  the  world  before  the  beginning  and  outside  the 
limits  of  the  Bible  record — from  worship  by  the  gentle 
fruit-offerings  of  the  gentle  races  to  the  fierce  blood- 
offerings  of  the  ferocious  races.  There  were  gods  many 
and  lords  many.  One  might  almost  say  every  process 
had  its  god.  There  was  the  god  of  battles,  the  god  of 
love,  the  god  of  storms,  the  god  of  disease,  innumerable 
little  gods  of  hearth  and  harvest,  of  all  traffics,  all  amuse- 
ments, and  all  emotions. 

The  Bible  is  the  record,  not  of  the  first  dawn  of  the 
idea  of  one  God,  for  we  know  that  idea  had  already 
not  only  dawned,  but  shone  in  Melchizedek  and  Ptah- 
Hotep  ;  probably  in  many  more.  But  it  is  the  record 
of  the  only  dawn  of  the  supreme  and  holy  unity  that 
was  strong  enough  and  long  enough,  wide  enough  and 
warm  enough,  to  glow  into  the  perfect  day,  to  reach 
down  to  our  time,  to  embrace  the  whole  world.  To  this 
idea — the  idea  of  one  God — doubtless  many  men,  perhaps 
many  races,  had  attained  ;  but  in  the  Jewish  race  alone 
it  found  staying  quality — a  stubborn,  proud,  tenacious 
race,  whose  very  qualities  of  stubbornness  and  pride  and 
tenacity  made  them  clutch  the  idea  and  hold  it  as  in  a 
vise  through  dark  ages  of  ignorance  ;  and  so  the  idea 
grew  through  battles  and  lapses,  through  bad  and  stupid 
kings,  and  vigilant,  vigorous  reformers,  till  the  Jews  de- 
livered it  once  for  all  to  the  world  in  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  perished  forever  as  a  nation,  to  live  forever 
as  a  proof. 

The  Jews  were  chosen  of  God  to  receive  and  retain 
the  Lord  our  righteousness,  not  by  any  miraculous  call 

6 


82  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

of  God  to  Abraham  out  of  the  skies,  but  by  virtue  of  that 
natural  hereditary  and  acquired  force  of  character  which 
we  can  describe  but  never  explain — a  force  which  spe- 
cially adapted  them  to  the  mission  of  holding  and  propa- 
gating the  faith.  It  is  on  the  principle  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  The  election  of  God  is  the  selection  of 
Darwin. 

The  naturalist  traces  back  along  the  lines  of  science 
the  same  principles  which  the  scholar  traces  back  along 
the  lines  of  history. 

For  the  divine  authority  of  the  Mosaic  sacrifices  we 
consult  the  Mosaic  books,  and  we  read  : 

**The  Lord  called  unto  Moses  and  spake  unto  him 
out  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation,  saying,  If  any 
man  of  you  bring  an  offering  unto  the  Lord,  ye  shall 
bring  your  offering  of  the  cattle.  And  he  shall  put  his 
hand  upon  the  head  of  the  burnt-offering,  and  it  shall  be 
accepted  for  him  to  make  atonement  for  him.  And  he 
shall  kill  the  bullock  before  the  Lord,  and  the  priests, 
Aaron's  sons,  shall  bring  the  blood,  and  sprinkle  the  blood 
roundabout  upon  the  altar.  And  he  shall  flay  the  burnt- 
offering,  and  cut  it  into  his  pieces.  And  the  priests, 
Aaron's  sons,  shall  lay  the  parts,  the  head  and  the  fat, 
in  order  upon  the  wood  that  is  on  the  fire  which  is  upon 
the  altar.  But  his  inwards  and  his  legs  shall  he  wash  in 
water  ;  and  the  priest  shall  burn  all  on  the  altar  to  be  a 
burnt-sacrifice,  an  offering  made  by  fire,  of  a  sweet  savor 
unto  the  Lord. 

"And  if  the  burnt-sacrifice  for  his  offering  to  the 
Lord  be  of  fowls,  then  he  shall  bring  his  offering  of 
turtle-doves  or  of  young  pigeons.  And  the  priest  shall 
bring  it  unto  the  altar,  and  wring  off  his  head  and  burn 
it  on  the  altar,  and  the  blood  thereof  shall  be  wrung  out 
at  the  side  of  the  altar.  And  he  shall  pluck  away  his 
crop  with  his  feathers,  and  cast  it  beside  the  altar  on  the 


THE   IXSTITUTES   OF  MOSES.  83 

east  part,  by  the  place  of  the  ashes.  And  he  shall  cleave 
it  with  the  wings  thereof,  and  the  priest  shall  burn  it 
upon  the  altar ;  it  is  a  burnt-sacrifice,  an  offering  made 
by  fire,  of  a  sweet  savor  unto  the  Lord." 

Is  that  like  God  ?  Like  God  who  is  a  spirit  ?  The 
unspeakable,  ineffable,  inconceivable  spirit  who  is  to  be 
worshiped  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  did  he  ever  order  him- 
self to  be  worshiped  with  the  entrails  of  a  bullock  ?  Can 
he  be  pleased  to  smell  the.  odor  of  burning  fat  ?  Would 
you  be  gratified  to  know  that  your  daughter  delighted  to 
see  a  chicken's  head  wrung  off  and  burnt  before  her  eyes  ? 
And  do  you  not  agree  with  Whittier  that  nothing  can  be 
good  in  Him  which  evil  is  in  me  ? 

The  internal  evidence  is  against  it.  It  is  not  like 
God.  It  is  not  gentle,  gracious,  seemly,  harmonious. 
It  is  violent,  brutal,  bloody,  barbarous.  It  is  not  spirit- 
ualizing;  it  is  brutalizing.  It  is,  therefore,  against  the 
eternal  order.     Therefore  it  can  not  be  of  God. 

As  an  approach  to  God,  it  is  retrogression.  It  puts 
in  the  background  repentance  for  the  remission  of  sins, 
and  brings  to  the  foreground  the  baptism  of  bullock's 
blood  for  the  remission  of  sins.  One  word  of  repentance 
and  reformation  is  given,  to  ten  words  of  cattle  and 
flour.  In  repeated  instances  there  is  expressed  or  implied 
assurance  of  forgiveness  upon  sacrifice  being  offered  with- 
out the  slightest  reference  to  repentance.  This  sacrifice 
is  called  atonement — atonement  for  sin — and  the  under- 
standing is  distinctly  conveyed  that  the  sacrifice  is  all 
that  is  required,  and  is  perfectly  satisfactory  to  God. 
When  you  wish  to  please  him  it  shall  be  by  a  sweet  savor 
of  burning  flesh  or  it  shall  be  by  a  meat-offering  of  fine 
flour  and  oil  baked  in  the  frying-pan. 

^^Thus  shall  Aaron  come  into  the  holy  place  :  with  a 
young  bullock  for  a  sin-offering,  and  a  ram  for  a  burnt- 
offering.     And  he  shall  take  of  the  congregation  of  the 


34  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS 

children  of  Israel  two  kids  of  the  goats  for  a  sin-offering. 
And  Aaron  shall  cast  lots  upon  the  two  goats,  one  lot  for 
the  Lord,  and  the  other  lot  for  the  scape-goat.  And  the 
goat  on  which  the  lot  fell  to  be  the  scape-goat,  shall  be 
presented  alive  before  the  Lord,  to  make  an  atonement 
with  him,  and  to  let  him  go  for  a  scape-goat  into  the 
wilderness.  Then  shall  he  kill  the  goat  of  the  sin-offer- 
ing and  bring  his  blood  within  the  vail  and  sprinkle  it 
upon  the  mercy-seat.  And  he  shall  make  an  atonement. 
And  Aaron  shall  lay  both  his  hands  upon  the  head  of  the 
live  goat,  and  confess  over  him  all  the  iniquities  of  the 
children  of  Israel,  putting  them  upon  the  head  of  the 
goat,  and  shall  send  him  away  by  the  hand  of  a  fit  man 
into  the  wilderness  ;  and  the  goat  shall  bear  upon  him 
all  their  iniquities  into  a  land  not  inhabited." 

That  is,  the  sin  of  a  man  shall  be  shouldered  off  upon 
an  innocent  beast.  A  bullock  that  has  no  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  shall  be  killed  to  placate  the  Lord,  who 
has  been  angered  because  a  man  who  has  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  chooses  the  evil.  A  goat  shall  receive  upon 
his  head  the  sins  of  men  and  shall  bear  them  away  into 
the  wilderness.  The  sinner  is  not  commanded  to  repent 
and  forsake  his  sin.  His  sin  forsakes  him — runs  away 
on  the  head  of  a  goat.  The  priest  and  the  bullock  and 
the  goat  make  atonement.  The  man  who  committed  the 
sin  is  but  a  passive  spectator. 

This  is  not  the  way  of  the  Lord.  It  is  the  device  of 
imperfect  men.  It  is  not  raising  man  to  the  likeness  of 
God  ;  it  is  degrading  God  to  the  likeness  of  greedy  and 
bloody  men. 

Rightly  said  the  author  of  Genesis  :  ''  The  Lord  spake 
unto  Moses  out  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation." 
It  was  not  the  word  of  the  Lord  out  of  the  spiritual 
heavens  where  his  honor  dwelleth  ;  but  the  word  of  the 
Lord  as  it  came  all  blood-stained  and  distorted  out  of 


THE   INSTITUTES   OF   MOSES.  35 

the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation  of  brutal  and  bloody 
men. 

The  external  evidence  is  against  it.  The  best  men, 
the  most  eloquent  prophets,  denounced  the  sacrifices  of 
their  priests  with  all  the  zeal  and  disgust  of  radical  re- 
formers the  world  over. 

Samuel  said:  ^^Hath  the  Lord  as  great  delight  in 
burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices  as  in  obeying  the  voice  of 
the  Lord  ?  Behold,  to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and 
to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams." 

David  said  :  *'  Offer  the  sacrifices  of  righteousness  and 
put  your  trust  in  the  Lord.  Sacrifice  and  offering  thou 
didst  not  desire.  Mine  ears  hast  thou  opened  :  burnt- 
offering  and  sin-offering  hast  thou  not  required.  Thou 
desirest  not  sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it.  Thou  delight- 
est  not  in  burnt-offering.  The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a 
broken  spirit." 

Isaiah  argued  with  the  white  heat  of  spiritual  revolt 
against  a  false  gospel  preached  from  places  of  authority  : 

''  To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices 
unto  me  ?  saith  the  Lord.  I  am  full  of  the  burnt-offer- 
ings of  rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts  ;  and  I  delight  not 
in  the  blood  of  bullocks,  or  of  lambs,  or  of  he-goats. 
Bring  no  more  vain  oblations  ;  incense  is  an  abomination 
unto  me.  When  ye  come  to  appear  before  me,  who  hath 
required  this  at  your  hands  ?  Your  hands  are  full  of 
blood.  Wash  ye,  make  you  clean,  put  away  the  evil  of 
your  doings  ;  cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to  do  well.  Eelieve 
the  oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the  widow." 

Micah  protested  with  an  outburst  of  passionate  rea- 
soning :  *' Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord? 
Shall  I  come  before  him  with  burnt-offerings,  with  calves 
of  a  year  old?  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with  thousands 
of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ?  Shall  I 
give  my  first-born  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my 


86  A  WASHLNGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul  ?  He  hath  showed  thee,  0 
man,  what  is  good  ;  and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of 
thee  but  to  do  justly  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God  ?  " 

Modern  science,  modern  culture,  could  not  show  more 
clearly  the  unreasonableness  of  it  all ;  the  grotesqueness, 
the  inadequacy  of  animal  and  of  human  sacrifice.  The 
whole  body  of  divinity  is  in  the  final  appeal  to  conscience. 

The  word  of  the  Lord  to  Jeremiah  was  of  the  same 
import :  "  To  what  purpose  cometh  there  to  me  incense 
from  Sheba,  and  the  sweet  cane  from  a  far  country  ? 
Your  burnt- offerings  are  not  acceptable,  nor  your  sacri- 
fices sweet  unto  me." 

With  fierce  sarcasm  Amos  pours  out  his  contempt  for 
the  depravity  and  the  devoutness  of  his  countrymen  : 

"  Hear  this  word,  ye  kine  of  Bashan  which  oppress 
the  poor,  which  crush  the  needy.  Come  to  Bethel  and 
transgress  ;  at  Gilgal  multiply  transgression  ;  and  bring 
your  sacrifices  every  morning  and  your  tithes  after  three 
years,  and  offer  a  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  with  leaven, 
and  proclaim  and  publish  the  free  offerings,  for  that 
liketh  you,  0  ye  children  of  Israel.  Ye  who  turn  judg- 
ment to  wormwood,  and  leave  off  righteousness  in  the 
earth." 

Then  turning  abruptly  to  direct  denunciation  :  ''  I 
hate,  I  despise  your  feast-days.  Though  ye  offer  me 
burnt-offerings  and  your  meat-offerings,  I  will  not  accept 
them,  neither  will  I  regard  the  peace-offerings  of  your 
fat  beasts." 

And  then  the  eternal  gospel :  ''  Seek  good  and  not 
evil,  that  ye  may  live  ;  and  so  the  Lord,  the  God  of  hosts, 
shall  be  with  you.  Hate  the  evil  and  love  the  good,  and 
establish  judgment  in  the  gate." 

Finally  the  worship  of  God  by  the  slaughter  of  beasts 
had  become  so  corrupt  that  the  great  preachers  classed  it 


THE  INSTITUTES  OF   MOSES.  87 

with  the  surrounding  idolatries.  The  word  of  the  Lord 
wliich  came  unto  Zephaniah  :  ^'^I  will  stretch  out  mine 
hand  upon  Judah  and  upon  all  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  I  will  cut  off  the  remnants  of  Baal  from  this 
place,  and  the  names  of  the  Ohemarims  with  the  priests. 
And  them  that  worship  the  host  of  heaven  upon  the 
housetops,  and  them  that  worship  and  that  swear  by 
the  Lord." 

Undoubtedly  these  reformers — these  Luthers  of  a  con- 
stant reformation — did  not  all  or  always  contemplate  the 
overthrow  of  the  institute  of  sacrifice.  They  desired  and 
designed  only  its  purification  and  vindication  by  a  reform 
in  conduct ;  but  the  sense  of  its  inadequacy,  and  a  percep- 
tion of  the  true  gospel  of  righteousness,  underlie  all  their 
words  and  deeds,  whose  natural  outcome  was  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  whole  system.  Emancipation  was  not  the  in- 
tent of  the  Government  in  our  war  of  the  rebellion,  but 
lay  wrapped  in  the  first  proclamation,  as,  the  fruit  is 
wrapped  in  the  seed. 

But  material  sacrifices,  it  is  argued,  though  not  per- 
fect or  meant  to  be  permanent,  were  divinely  ordained  as 
best  adapted  to  a  rude  and  barbarous  people  who  had  not 
arrived  at  any  conception  of  a  spiritual  God  and  spiritual 
worship.  Then  why  do  we  carry  the  gospel  of  Christ  to 
barbarous  peoples,  and  why  do  we  not  carry  the  gospel 
of  burnt-offerings  ?  The  Apache  Indians  are  a  good  deal 
more  barbarous  than  were  those  countrymen  of  Moses 
and  Micah.  The  Jews  had  as  fine  and  forcible  a  litera- 
ture as  any  in  the  world — a  literature  perhaps  more  per- 
vasive and  influential  than  another  nation  can  show. 
The  legislation  of  Moses  may  be  ranked  with  that  of  So- 
lon and  the  Twelve  Tables,  and  the  reputation  of  Moses 
as  the  great  law-giver  has  suffered  no  eclipse.  The  songs 
of  David  are  yet  to  be  excelled  in  their  sweep  of  imagina- 
tion, in  their  depth  of  experience,  in  their  wide  and  true 


88  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

appeal  to  the  human  heart  certified  by  their  unparalleled 
popularity  in  undreamed-of  countries  through  uncounted 
generations.  No  didactic  teaching  is  better  than  that 
of  Isaiah.  No  eloquence  has  a  loftier  tone,  no  genius 
has  more  solemn  strains  than  are  found  in  the  Hebrew 
prophets. 

If  animal  sacrifice  be  a  proper  way  to  prepare  a  rude 
people  for  spiritual  worship,  why  did  we  not  baild  altars 
in  Hawaii  ?  Why  did  we  not  sacrifice  bullocks  among  the 
Cherokees  ?  Why  did  we  not  burn  the  fat  of  fed  beasts 
in  Micronesia  ?  Why  do  we  not  pour  oil  over  flour  for  the 
Zulus  ?  By  as  much  as  they  are  behind  the  Jews  in  civ- 
ilization, by  so  much  they  need  the  preparation  by  the 
slaughter  of  beasts  to  make  them  ready  to  receive  Christ. 

Was  it  effective  ? 

Did  animal  sacrifice  prepare  the  way  for  the  Lord  ? 
Did  it  make  smooth  the  path  for  the  Messiah  ?  The  sacri- 
fices were  in  full  blast  when  he  was  born  a  babe  in  Bethle- 
hem, and  that  blast  was  turned  upon  him  to  destroy 
him.  Could  they  have  treated  him  worse  ?  The  very 
priests  who  performed  the  sacrifices,  the  very  men  who 
ministered  at  the  altar,  the  very  scribes  and  Pharisees 
who  expounded  the  law  of  the  sacrifices  to  the  people, 
were  the  ones  who  hunted  him  to  his  death  on  the  cross. 
Those  who  knew  most  about  these  preparatory  insti- 
tutes were  the  ones  who  were  least  prepared.  They 
crushed  and  crucified  the  Christ  for  whom  the  sacrifices 
were  to  prepare  them. 

Pilate,  the  Eomans,  the  idol-worshipers,  the  heathen, 
hesitated  a  little,  tried  to  save  him,  had  to  be  urged  on  to 
the  crucifixion  by  those  who  worshiped  the  Most  High 
God  with  burning  fat  and  dripping  blood. 

Why  did  Isaiah  ask  :  ^^  To  what  purpose  the  multitude 
of  your  sacrifices  to  me  ? "  He  should  have  answered 
himself  :  **  To  prepare  the  minds  of  the  people  for  the 


THE  INSTITUTES  OF  MOSES.  89 

great  atonement  of  Christ."  Isaiah's  question  has  no 
pertinence  if  the  sacrifices  were  preparatory. 

But  if  the  institutes  of  sacrifice  were  not  a  j^repara- 
tion  for  Christ,  were  they  not  divinely  ordained  as  a  type 
of  Christ  ?  The  blood-atonement  of  sheep,  though  not 
really  atonement,  did  prefigure  the  real  atonement  of 
Christ.  The  paschal  lamb  was  a  type  of  the  Christ,  the 
lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  To  this 
type  Christ  was  antitype — to  which  in  the  fullness  of  time 
the  type  must  give  way. 

But  was  this  a  successful  device — so  successful  that  it 
must  have  come  directly  from  a  divine  hand,  and  not 
through  the  medium  of  human  experiment  ?  Twenty 
generations  of  innocent  animals  slaughtered  by  divine 
command  in  order  to  notify  the  world  beforehand  of  the 
coming  of  our  Lord,  yet  never  conveying  to  the  world 
one  hint,  so  that  when  Christ  did  come,  the  very  ones 
who  administered  the  animal  sacrifices  knew  nothing  of 
their  drift,  their  scope,  their  meaning,  their  notification  ! 
The  officers  of  the  type  crucified  the  antitype.  If  God 
framed  that  device,  it  was  a  signal  failure.  But  God 
never  fails.     Therefore  the  device  was  not  of  God. 

The  Old  Testament  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  any 
such  meaning  to  sacrifices.  Isaiah  says  expressly  that 
they  were  of  no  use  whatever,  and  that  God  was  weary  to 
bear  them.  If  he  had  appointed  them,  why  should  he 
be  weary  to  bear  them  ? 

If  sacrifices  were  a  type  of  Christ,  there  must  be  some 
resemblance.  Wherein  does  it  lie  ?  Christ  was  a  willing 
sacrifice  ;  he  offered  himself.  A  bullock  was  forced  to 
the  slaughter  for  he  knew  not  what.  He  was  not  even 
an  intelligent  sacrifice.  He  died  like  any  beast  at  the 
shambles.  He  made  the  sanctuary  of  the  Most  High  but 
a  butcher's  slaughter-house.  There  is  no  possible  resem- 
blance but  innocence  and  death,  and  the  innocence  of  the 


90  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

beast  is  without  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  there- 
fore of  no  significance,  and  the  innocence  of  Christ  is  the 
innocence  of  supreme  holiness.  The  involuntary  death 
of  an  unwilling  animal  can  not  signify  the  voluntary 
death  of  him  in  whose  hands  are  the  issues  of  life. 

Jesus  himself  must  have  known  what  was  the  worth, 
mission,  type  of  animal  sacrifices.  He  never  spoke  one 
word  for  them  ;  all  his  words  were  against  them.  He 
never  once  spoke  of  their  prefiguring  value,  their  typical 
meaning.  He  never  called  himself  the  paschal  lamb. 
He  never  called  himself  a  sheep  at  all,  but  the  Shepherd 
of  the  sheep.  There  is  upon  him  no  flavor  of  this  ty- 
pology. 

To  the  law  and  to  the  testimony  :  what  was  the  pas- 
chal lamb  originally  ?  For  all  that  followed — the  Sacri- 
fice of  the  Lamb,  the  Passover,  the  Lord's  Supper  cele- 
brated in  our  time,  all  lie  in  the  original  rite.  What  was 
the  paschal  lamb  ? 

**  The  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  and  Aaron  in  the  land 
of  Egypt,  saying,  Speak  ye  unto  all  the  congregation  of 
Israel,  saying,  In  the  tenth  day  of  this  month  they  shall 
take  to  them  every  man  a  lamb  according  to  the  house  of 
their  fathers,  a  lamb  for  an  house  ;  and  if  the  household 
be  too  little  for  the  lamb,  let  him  and  his  neighbor  next 
unto  his  house  take  it  according  to  the  number  of  the 
souls  ;  and  the  whole  assembly  of  the  congregation  of 
Israel  shall  kill  it  in  the  evening.  And  they  shall  take 
of  the  blood,  and  strike  it  on  the  two  side-posts  and  on 
the  upper  door-post  of  the  houses  wherein  they  shall  eat 
it.  And  they  shall  eat  the  flesh  in  that  night,  roast  with 
fire,  and  unleavened  bread ;  and  with  bitter  herbs  they 
shall  eat  it.  And  ye  shall  let  nothing  of  it  remain  until 
the  morning  ;  and  that  which  remaineth  of  it  until  the 
morning  ye  shall  burn  with  fire.  And  thus  shall  ye  eat 
it :  with  your  loins  girded,  your  shoes  on  your  feet,  and 


THE   INSTITUTES  OF  MOSES.  91 

your  staff  in  your  hand  ;  and  ye  shall  eat  it  in  haste  ;  it 
is  the  Lord's  passover.     And  the  blood  shall  be  to  you 
for  a  token  upon  the  houses  where  ye  are  ;  and  when  I 
see  the  blood  I  will  pass  over  you  and  the  plague  shall 
not  be  upon  you  to  destroy  you  when  I  smite  the  land  of 
Egypt.     And  this  day  shall  be  unto  you  for  a  memorial ; 
and  ye  shall  keep  it  a  feast  to  the  Lord  throughout  your  gen- 
erations ;  ye  shall  keep  it  a  feast  by  an  ordinance  forever. 
*^  And  the  children  of  Israel  did  as  the  Lord  command- 
ed Moses  and  Aaron.     And  it  came  to  pass  that  at  mid- 
night the  Lord  smote  all  the  first-born  in  the  land  of 
Egypt.     And  Pharaoh  called  for  Moses  and  Aaron  by 
night,  and  said,  Rise  up  and  get  you  forth.     And  the 
Eo-yptians  were  urgent  upon  the  people  that  they  might 
send  them  out  of  the  land  in  haste  ;  for  they  said.  We  be 
all  dead  men.     And  the  people  took  their  dough  before 
it  was  leavened,  their  kneading-troughs  being  bound  up 
in  their  clothes  upon  their  shoulders.     And  they  jour- 
neyed, and  they  baked  unleavened  cakes  of  the  dough 
which  they  brought  forth  out  of  Egypt,  for  it  was  not 
leavened,  because  they  were  thrust  out  of  Egypt  and 
could  not  tarry." 

What,  then,  was  the  passover  ?  It  was  a  simple  meal, 
a  family  meal,  a  nourishing  and  strengthening  meal  ;  a 
hasty  meal  preparatory  to  a  hard  journey  next  day.  The 
Israelites  were,  so  to  say,  turned  out  of  Egypt  neck  and 
heels.  They  ate,  as  it  were,  in  traveling-dress,  with  their 
shawl-straps  in  their  hands.  Pharaoh  was  in  such  a 
hurry  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  they  were  in  such  a  hurry 
to  be  gone  before  he  should  get  over  his  panic  and  change 
his  mind,  that  they  could  not  wait  for  the  bread  to  rise. 
They  swallowed  their  lamb  and  packed  up  the  dough  as 
it  was,  kneading-troughs  and  all,  and  ran. 

There  is  no  sacrifice  in  it  at  all.     There  is  hardly 
solemnity.     There  is  hurry  and  rush,  but  no  confusion, 


92  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

because  they  were  well  disciplined.  To  the  Jews  there 
was  a  meaning  in  celebrating  it  as  a  festival,  for  it  meant 
a  great  deliverance,  the  emancipation  of  the  Jews  from 
four  hundred  and  thirty  years  of  slavery,  and  it  memori- 
alized even  the  method  of  emancipation  ;  but  there  is  not 
a  word  of  sacrifice.  The  slaughter  was  not  pretended  to 
be  sacrifice.  It  was  only  that  they  had  a  hearty  and 
relishing  supper  of  roast  lamb.  It  was  a  meal  sensible 
and  frugal,  for  if  the  family  was  small  the  next  neigh- 
bor joined  them  in  one  lamb.  Nothing  was  left  for 
next  day,  for  they  would  not  be  there  next  day.  The 
cold  victuals  were  to  be  burned — not  left  to  decay,  to 
make  a  stench  and  become  a  nuisance,  even  to  their  ene- 
mies and  oppressors.  Moses,  their  leader,  looked  closely 
after  health,  and  therefore  after  cleanliness,  and  the 
burning  was  sanitary  and  not  sacrificial. 

The  passover  appears  not  to  have  been  celebrated  at 
all  in  the  wilderness  ;  or  in  Canaan,  so  far  as  we  know, 
till  the  time  of  Hezekiah.  There  is  indeed  color  for  the 
theory  that  the  passover  was  not  founded  till  long  after 
the  emancipation,  though  it  was  founded  or  fitted  upon 
an  incident  of  the  emancipation.  The  establishment  of 
a  celebration  of  deliverance  would  be  more  in  accord 
with  the  tranquillity  and  gratitude  of  a  deliverance  past 
than  with  the  haste  and  stress^  of  a  deliverance  yet  to  be 
achieved.  But  the  traditions  of  the  elders,  whenever 
they  began  to  build,  builded  so  firmly  and  so  liberally 
on  the  basis  of  history  that  when  we  get  down  to  the 
times  of  Christ  we  find  the  sacrificial  theory  a  component 
part,  as  it  were,  of  the  original  institution.  Josephus 
states  as  confidently  as  if  it  were  holy  writ  that  '^when 
the  fourteenth  day  was  come  and  all  were  ready  to  depart, 
they  offered  the  sacrifices  and  purified  their  houses  with 
the  blood.  .  .  .  Whence  it  is  that  we  do  still  offer  this 
sacrifice  to  this  day  and  call  this  festival  Pascha." 


THE  INSTITUTES  OF   MOSES.  93 

All  the  sacrificial  element  was  lent  to  the  slaughter, 
and  all  the  purifying  element  to  the  blood,  by  later  theory. 
It  is  not  in  the  original  narrative.  The  slaughter  original- 
ly was  of  a  lamb  for  food.  The  blood  marked  the  houses 
that  were  to  be  passed  over.  Josephus  spoke  according 
as  he  had  been  taught,  not  as  he  had  read  for  himself. 

When  our  Lord  cslebrated  the  feast  of  the  passover 
it  was  not  as  a  sacrifice.  There  was  no  burning  of  fat 
on  the  altar,  no  blood-stain  on  the  altar-horns,  no  blood 
poured  out  at  the  altar's  base.  *'  Then  came  the  day  of 
unleavened  bread,  when  the  passover  must  be  killed. 
And  he  sent  Peter  and  John,  saying,  Go  and  prepare  us 
the  passover,  that  we  may  eat :  and  they  made  ready  tlie 
passover.  And  as  they  ivere  eating,  Jesus  took  bread  and 
blessed  it,  and  brake  it,  and  gave  it  to  the  disciples,  and 
said,  Take,  eat ;  this  is  my  body,  which  is  given  for  you  : 
this  do  in  remembrance  of  me.  And  he  took  the  cup 
and  gave  thanks  and  gave  it  to  them,  saying,  Drink  ye 
all  of  it ;  for  this  is  my  blood  of  the  new  testament 
which  is  shed  for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins.  Peace 
I  leave  with  you,  my  peace  I  give  unto  you.  Let  not 
your  heart  be  troubled." 

There  is  love  in  it  and  sympathy,  the  eternal  pain  of 
human  parting,  and  the  infinite  consolations  of  divine 
tenderness.  It  is  as  if  Heaven  opened  wide  her  ever- 
during  gates  and  poured  forth  once  for  all  upon  the 
suffering  and  sorrowing  earth  a  flood  of  heavenly  heal- 
ing ;  gave,  instead  of  despair  for  a  vanished  face  and  a 
silent  voice,  not  hope  of  future  meeting,  but  immediate 
eternal  presence,  eternal,  instant  reunion. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   ORIGIN"   OF   SACRIFICE. 

If  the  institutes  of  sacrifice  were  not  ordered  by  God, 
whence  did  they  come  ?  If  they  were  not  divine  ordi- 
nances, what  were  they  ? 

Human  ordinances  instituted  by  man.  Patient  and 
minute  investigation  has  found  in  man  a  native  tendency 
to  ascribe  to  a  power  above  Nature  everything  in  Nature 
which  man  can  not  understand  or  control.  This  is  the 
first  outflow  of  divine  inspiration ;  the  first  faint  breath  of 
eternal  life,  constituting  man  alone,  of  all  the  animals,  a 
living  soul.  If  the  phenomenon  which  ho  observes  agrees 
with  man's  idea  of  the  good  and  beautiful,  he  ascribes  it 
to  a  good  being.  If  it  agrees  with  his  sense  of  the  hostile 
and  the  horrible,  he  ascribes  it  to  a  bad  being.  TTe  can 
see  this  tendency  in  our  own  day.  Captain  Cook's  sailors 
were  hardly  set  for  the  first  time  on  the  Australian  shore 
when  they  came  rushing  back  to  their  boats  crying  that 
they  had  seen  the  devil  in  the  bush  !  Thus  they  named 
the  kangaroo. 

This  tendency  marks  a  certain  stage  of  development 
— the  development  in  humanity  of  a  spiritual  nature.  It 
is  suggested  in  the  Bible  Genesis  that  the  human  race 
existed,  whether  for  years  or  for  ages,  before  it  attained 
the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  Whenever  humanity 
had  attained  that  knowledge,  by  that  knowledge  it  be- 
came capable  of  morality,  and  therefore  morally  responsi- 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  SACRIFICE.  95 

ble.  When  humanity  could  lift  itself  out  of  Nature  and 
view  itself  in  its  relations,  could  abstract,  classify,  organ- 
ize, and  pass  moral  judgment  on  moral  actions,  its  very 
first  inference  seems  to  have  been  that  there  was  an  un- 
known superior  power  outside  of  and  above  itself.  Men 
saw  that  when  they  had  done  everything  which  they 
could  do,  the  issue  was  still  uncertain.  Therefore  there 
must  be  a  power  behind  unseen.  This  power  we  call  the 
powers  of  Nature.  We  may  have  a  glimpse  of  it  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  where  they  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord 
God  walking  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day.  A 
marginal  reference  substitutes  the  word  wi^id  for  the  cool 
of  the  day.  They  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  in 
the  wind. 

Pope  alludes  to  it : 

"  Lo !  the  poor  Indian,  whose  untutored  mind 
Sees  God  in  clouds  and  hears  him  in  the  wind." 

We  have  reasoned  a  few  steps  further.  We  have  discov- 
ered that  many  things  which  seemed  to  our  ancestors 
supernatural  are  really  natural.  What  ignorance  had 
located  outside  of  Nature,  knowledge  has  relegated  to 
Nature.  But  we  have  not  advanced  one  step  if  we  main- 
tain that  because  God  works  by  law,  in  law,  through  law, 
he  does  not  work  at  all.  The  ancients  misunderstood 
order  and  worshiped  God,  but  better  and  truer  so  than 
to  worship  order  and  deny  God. 

This  unknown  power  they  individualized  infinitely, 
and  slavishly,  because  ignorantly,  deprecated  and  concili- 
ated it.  They  worshiped  the  god  of  fate  to  secure  his 
help.  Tliey  worshiped  the  god  of  disaster  to  avert  his 
wrath.  We  can  hardly  call  this  morality,  but  it  was  a 
basis  of  morality.  It  may  have  existed  a  long  while 
before  it  developed  a  sense  of  moral  right  and  wrong,  but 
out  of  it  has  sprung  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong.  This 
power,  which  we  have  not  dethroned  when  we  call  it  the 


96  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

power  of  Nature,  became  to  the  ancients  living  and  per- 
sonal. 

As  great  men  seemed  to  partake  of  the  unknown 
power,  they,  too,  came  to  be  worshiped  as  gods.  If  Na- 
poleon had  lived  twenty  centuries  earlier,  he  would  doubt- 
less have  been  apotheosized,  for  genius  is  spasmodic  in 
its  appearance,  not  hereditary.  It  has  not  been  accounted 
for,  nor  has  it  been  common  enough  to  make  familiarity 
serve  the  purpose  of  comprehension.  It  was  therefore 
mysterious. 

We  are  not  without  eye-witness.  We  ourselves  have 
barely  emerged  from  the  god-making  era.  The  Caesars 
are  as  well  known  to  us  as  George  Washington,  but  they 
had  their  cult.  Frescoes  represented  them  taking  their 
place  among  the  gods.  The  *^ deified  Caesar"  was  as 
common  a  term  to  the  Eomans  as  "the  late  emperor"  is 
to  us.  To  the  "deified  Caesars"  temples  were  built, 
priests  were  appointed,  sacrifices  offered.  I  think  the 
Caesars  knew  better.  Augustus  Caesar,  perhaps  the  best 
of  them  all,  showed  a  strong  flavor  of  skepticism,  but  he 
availed  himself  of  the  popular  belief  in  deities  to  fasten 
his  institutions  on  the  state.  Tiberius,  generally  consid- 
ered, though  I  think  wrongly,  the  worst  of  them  all, 
wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity,  and  refused  to  be  deified.  "  I 
know  well,"  he  protested,  "that  I  am  but  a  man,  and 
subject  to  all  the  conditions  of  humanity."  But  for 
many  a  day  the  thrones  of  heaven  were  recruited  from 
the  palaces  of  earth. 

Naturally  these  earth-born  gods  carried  with  them 
into  their  heaven  the  qualities  of  earth.  So  Agamem- 
non's treasures  were  buried  with  him  ;  so  the  dead  hand 
of  the  Indian  was  furnished  for  the  next  world  w4th  the 
weapons  which  he  had  needed  in  this.  As  men  required 
food  for  sustenance  here,  they  carried  this  need  into  the 
unknown,  and  hence  offerings  of  food  and  drink  were 


THE   ORIGIN   OF   SACRIFICE.  97 

made  to  them  as  gods.  Burnt-oSerings  may  have  rep- 
resented cooked  food  ;  libations  of  wine  sjirang  hence, 
and  possibly  the  sprinkling  of  blood,  for  the  drinking 
of  blood  among  men  was  not  unknown  as  a  symbol  of 
victory. 

When  the  divine  aspiration  in  man  began  to  reach 
out  into  worship  by  oilerings,  into  worship  by  slaughter 
of  beasts,  we  do  not  know.  It  was  not  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden.  It  did  not  appear,  outside  of  Eden  till  after  a 
'^process  of  time."  Possibly  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel 
epitomizes  the  first  institution  of  animal  sacrifice,  the 
departure  from  the  peaceful  and  harmless  fruit-offering 
of  the  elder  brother,  or  the  earlier  race,  Cain,  to  the 
bloody  and  violent  beast-offering  of  the  younger  brother, 
or  the  later  race,  Abel.  It  is  true  that  the  representative 
of  fruit-offering  has  fared  badly  at  the  hands  of  the 
world,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  he  was  on  the 
losing  side.  The  beast- worshipers  prevailed.  The  beast- 
worshipers  told  the  story  and  had  it  all  their  own  way. 
We  have  not  yet  heard  Cain's  side. 

Josephus  unhesitatingly  explains  the  acceptance  of 
Abel's  sacrifice  and  the  non-acceptance  of  Cain's  by  as- 
suming that  '^God  was  more  delighted  when  he  was  hon- 
ored with  what  grew  naturally  of  its  own  accord  than  ho 
was  with  the  invention  of  a  covetous  man,  and  gotten  by 
forcing  the  ground  !" 

If  Cain  forced  the  ground  more  than  Josephus  forced 
this  reasoning,  he  merited  that  his  sacrifice  should  be  re- 
jected. We  should  naturally  suppose  that  the  one  who 
took  the  most  pains  would  give  the  most  pleasure. 

St.  John  gives  a  more  reasonable  explanation  :  "  Cain 
was  of  the  Evil  One,  and  slew  his  brother.  And  where- 
fore slew  he  him  ?  Because  his  own  works  were  evil  and 
his  brother's  righteous."  It  does  not  appear,  however, 
that  John  was  giving  any  more  than  his  own  inference, 
7 


98  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

or  the  traditional  Jewish  teaching.  He  was  using  the  in- 
cident in  a  literary  sense  ;  as  a  rhetorical  intensification, 
not  a  question  of  historical  investigation  ;  not  apparently 
of  divine  inspiration.  It  was  a  tradition  common  to  the 
Jews,  the  generalization  of  Josephns's  specification.  In- 
deed, the  hard  measure  dealt  out  to  Cain  by  his  Jewish 
kin  generally  savors  more  of  prejudice  than  of  impartial 
history.  *'He  accepted  his  punishment,"  Josephus  de- 
clares, "not  in  order  to  amendment,  but  to  increase  his 
wickedness.  He  aimed  only  at  his  own  bodily  pleasures, 
though  it  injured  his  neighbor.  He  gained  wealth  by 
rapine  and  violence.  He  became  a  great  leader  of  men 
to  robbery.  He  was  the  author  of  weights  and  measures  ; 
and  whereas,"  says  his  naive  biographer,  "men  lived  in- 
nocently and  generously  while  they  knew  nothing  of  such 
arts,  he  changed  the  world  into  cunning  craftiness.  He, 
first  of  all,  set  boundaries  about  lands  ;  he  built  a  city 
and  fortified  it  with  walls,  and  he  compelled  his  family 
to  come  together  to  it.  His  posterity  became  exceed- 
ingly wicked,  every  one  successively  dying  one  after 
another,  more  wicked  than  the  former.  They  were  in- 
tolerable in  war,  vehement  in  robberies,  if  not  murder- 
ous, profligate,  bold  in  acting  unjustly  and  in  doing  in- 
juries for  gain." 

But  none  the  less  does  Josephus  account  for  the  great 
age  of  the  antediluvians  by  the  theory  that  "God  gave 
them  length  of  days  on  account  of  their  virtue  !"  And 
with  Josephus's  grave  general  charges  of  crime  we  mark 
that  his  specifications  are  all  of  the  weights  and  meas- 
ures and  metes  of  civilization,  the  organization  of  socie- 
ty, the  establishment  of  homes.  Even  in  the  story  of 
Cain's  victorious  antagonist,  the  inspiration  of  the  Al- 
mighty giveth  us  understanding  of  a  man  who,  in  defeat 
and  exile,  kept  communion  with  God,  received  his  pro- 
tection, and  became  the  progenitor  of  a  race  distinguished 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  SACRIFICE.  99 

for  its  agricultural,  industrial,  mechanical,  and  musical 
genius — that  is,  for  the  arts,  the  charms,  the  victories  of 
peace,  not  of  blood.  What  Josephus  calls  '^cunning 
craftiness"  seems  to  have  been  an  Edisonian  inventive- 
ness. It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  story  of  the  first 
murderer  means  nothing  but  the  first  murder. 

Abel  perished,  but  it  was  in  the  beginning  as  it  is 
now,  and  ever  shall  be— the  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the 
seed  of  the  Church.  God.  rebuked  Cain  for  bloodshed, 
even  though  it  were  to  prevent  bloodshed — the  blood  of  a 
man  for  the  blood  of  a  beast— and  the  church  of  blood- 
atonement  was  established.  But  almost  coeval  with  its 
establishment  was  the  undying  protest  against  it ;  first 
against  its  abuses,  finally  against  itself.  Its  temptations 
to  corruption  were  overwhelming.  The  reservation  of  a 
large  part  of  the  animal  sacrifice  to  the  priest  was  in 
itself  a  constant  temptation,  and  brought  great  scandal 
both  in  the  worship  of  idols  and  in  the  beastly  worship 
of  God.  The  original  institutes  of  Moses  ordained  that 
"the  priest  that  offereth  any  man's  burnt-offering,  even 
the  priest  shall  have  to  himself  the  skin  of  the  burnt- 
offering  which  he  hath  offered.  And  all  the  meat-offering 
that  is  baked  in  the  oven,  and  all  that  is  dressed  in  the 
frying-pan,  and  in  the  pan,  shall  be  the  priest's  that 
offereth  it.  And  every  meat-offering,  mingled  with  oil, 
and  dry,  shall  all  the  sons  of  Aaron  have,  one  as  much  as 
another.  And  this  is  the  law  of  the  sacrifice  of  peace- 
offerings,  which  he  shall  offer  unto  the  Lord.  If  he 
offer  it  for  a  thanksgiving,  then  he  shall  offer  with  the 
sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  unleavened  cakes  mingled  with 
oil,  and  unleavened  wafers  anointed  with  oil,  and  cakes 
mingled  with  oil,  of  fine  flour,  fried.  Besides  the  cakes, 
he  shall  offer  for  his  offering  leavened  bread  with  the  sac- 
rifice of  thanksgiving  of  his  peace-offerings.  And  of  it 
he  shall  offer  one  out  of  the  whole  oblation  for  a  heave- 


100  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

offering  unto  the  Lord,  and  it  shall  be  the  priest's  that 
sprinkleth  the  blood  of  the  peace-offerings. 

"And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses,  saying,  Speak  unto 
the  children  of  Israel,  saying.  He  that  offereth  the  sac- 
rifice of  his  peace-offerings  unto  the  Lord  shall  bring  his 
oblation  unto  the  Lord  of  the  sacrifice  of  his  peace-offer- 
ings. His  own  hands  shall  bring  the  offerings  of  the 
Lord  made  by  fire,  the  fat  with  the  breast ;  it  shall  he 
bring,  that  the  breast  may  be  waved  for  a  wave-offering 
before  the  Lord.  And  the  priest  shall  burn  the  fat  upon 
the  altar  :  but  the  breast  shall  be  Aaron's  and  his  sons'. 
And  the  right  shoulder  shall  ye  give  unto  the  priest  for 
a  heave-offering  of  the  sacrifices  of  your  peace-offerings. 
He  among  the  sons  of  Aaron  that  offereth  the  blood  of 
the  peace-offerings,  and  the  fat,  shall  have  the  right 
shoulder  for  his  part.  For  the  wave  breast  and  the  heave 
shoulder  have  I  taken  of  the  children  of  Israel  from  off 
the  sacrifices  of  their  peace-offerings,  and  have  given  them 
unto  Aaron  the  priest  and  unto  his  sons  by  a  statute  for- 
ever from  among  the  children  of  Israel." 

A  detailed  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  priests 
imposed  upon  the  people  in  idol  worship  is  found  in  the 
story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  cut  off  from  the  Book  of 
Daniel.  It  is  a  story  of  the  country  from  which  Abram 
came,  where  his  ancestors  lived  and  worshiped  just  such 
gods. 

"!N"owthe  Babylonians  had  an  idol  called  Bel,  and 
there  were  spent  upon  him  every  day  twelve  great  meas- 
ures of  fine  flour  and  forty  sheep  and  six  vessels  of  wine. 
And  the  king  worshiped  it  and  went  daily  to  adore  it : 
but  Daniel  worshiped  his  own  God.  And  the  king  said 
unto  him.  Why  do?t  not  thou  worship  Bel  ?  Who  an- 
swered and  said,  Because  I  may  not  worship  idols  made 
with  hands,  but  the  living  God,  who  hath  created  the 
heaven  and  the  earth,  and  hath  sovereignty  over  all  flesh. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  SACRIFICE.  IQl 

"  Then  said  the  king  unto  him,  Thinkest  thou  not  that 
Bel  is  a  living  god  ?  Seest  thou  not  how  much  he  eat- 
eth  and  drinketh  every  day  ? 

**  Then  Daniel  smiled  and  said,  0  king,  be  not  de- 
ceived :  for  this  is  but  clay  within  and  brass  without, 
and  did  never  eat  or  drink  anything. 

*'So  the  king  was  wroth  and  called  for  his  priests  and 
said  unto  them,  If  ye  tell  me  not  who  this  is  that  de- 
voureth  these  expenses,  ye  .  shall  die.  But  if  ye  can  cer- 
tify me  that  Bel  devoureth  them,  then  Daniel  shall  die  : 
for  he  hath  spoken  blasphemy  against  Bel.  And  Daniel 
said  unto  the  king,  Let  it  be  according  to  thy  word.  Now 
the  priests  of  Bel  were  threescore  and  ten,  besides  their 
wives  and  children.  And  the  king  went  with  Daniel  into 
the  temple  of  Bel.  So  Bel's  priests  said,  Lo,  w^  go  out : 
but  thou,  0  king,  set  on  the  meat,  and  make  ready  the 
wine,  and  shut  the  door  fast,  and  seal  it  with  thine  own 
signet ;  and  to-morrow  when  thou  comest  in,  if  thou 
findest  not  that  Bel  hath  eaten  up  all,  we  will  suffer 
death,  or  else  Daniel,  that  speaketh  falsely  against  us. 

"And  they  little  regarded  it,  for  under  the  table  they 
had  made  a  privy  entrance,  whereby  they  entered  in  con- 
tinually and  consumed  those  things. 

"  So  when  they  were  gone  forth  the  king  set  meats 
before  Bel.  Now  Daniel  had  commanded  his  servants  to 
bring  ashes,  and  those  they  strewed  throughout  all  the 
temple  in  the  presence  of  the  king  alone  :  then  went  they 
out,  and  shut  the  door,  and  sealed  it  with  the  king's  sig- 
net, and  so  departed. 

*'Now  in  the  night  came  the  priests  with  their  wives 
and  children,  as  they  were  wont  to  do,  and  did  eat  and 
drink  up  all. 

"In  the  morning,  betime,  the  king  arose,  and  Daniel 
with  him.  And  the  king  said,  Daniel,  are  the  seals 
whole  ?    And  he  said.  Yea,  0  king,  they  be  whole.     And 


102  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

as  soon  as  lie  had  opened  the  door  the  king  looked  upon 
the  table  and  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  Great  art  thou,  0 
Be],  and  with  thee  is  no  deceit  at  all ! 

*^Then  laughed  Daniel,  and  held  the  king  that  he 
should  not  go  in,  and  said.  Behold  now  the  pavement, 
and  mark  well  whose  footsteps  are  these.  And  the  king 
said,  I  see  the  footsteps  of  men,  women,  aud  children. 
And  then  the  king  was  angry,  and  took  the  priests  with 
their  wives  and  children,  who  shewed  him  the  privy 
doors,  where  they  came  in  and  consumed  such  things  as 
were  upon  the  table. 

'*  Therefore  the  king  slew  them  and  delivered  Bel  into 
Daniel's  power,  who  destroyed  him  and  his  temple. 

"And  in  that  same  j)lace  there  was  a  great  dragon, 
which  they  of  Babylon  worshiped.  And  the  king  said 
unto  Daniel,  Wilt  thou  also  say  that  this  is  of  brass  ? 
lo,  he  liveth,  he  eateth  and  drinketh  ;  thou  canst  not  say 
that  he  is  no  living  god  :  therefore  worship  him. 

*'Theu  said  Daniel  unto  the  king,  I  will  worship  the 
Lord  my  God,  for  he  is  the  living  God.  But  give  me 
leave,  0  king,  and  I  shall  slay  this  dragon  without  sword 
or  staff.     The  king  said,  I  give  thee  leave. 

"Then  Daniel  took  pitch,  and  fat,  and  hair,  and  did 
seethe  them  together,  and  made  lumps  thereof  :  this  he 
put  in  the  dragon's  mouth,  and  so  the  dragon  bnrst  in 
sunder :  and  Daniel  said,  Lo,  these  are  the  gods  ye  wor- 
ship. , 

'*  When  they  of  Babylon  heard  that  they  took  great 
indignation,  and  conspired  against  the  king,  saying. 
The  king  is  become  a  Jew,  and  he  hath  destroyed  Bel, 
he  hath  slain  the  dragon,  and  put  the  priests  to  death." 

The  story  may  be  a  narrative  of  history,  or  a  myth, 
or  a  legend,  or  a  poem ;  but  equally  it  indicates  the 
source,  character,  and  corruption  of  the  institution. 

The  worship  of  the  Israelites  presents  corresponding 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  SACRIFICE.  103 

abuses — abuses  for  which  their  blood  sacrifices  presented 
special  temptations. 

'^The  sons  of  Eli  were  sons  of  Belial;  they  knew 
not  the  Lord.  And  the  priest's  custom  with  the  people 
was,  that,  when  any  man  olfered  sacrifices,  the  priest's 
servant  came,  while  the  flesh  was  in  seething,  with  a 
flesh-hook  of  three  teeth  in  his  hand  ;  and  he  struck  it 
into  the  pan,  or  kettle,  or  caldron,  or  pot  ;  all  that  the 
flesh-hook  brought  up  the  priest  took  for  himself.  So 
they  did  in  Shiloh  unto  all  the  Israelites  that  came 
thither.  Also  before  they  burnt  the  fat  the  priest's  serv- 
ant came  and  said  to  the  man  that  sacrificed,  Give  flesh 
to  roast  for  the  priest ;  for  he  will  not  have  sodden  flesh 
of  thee,  but  raw.  And  if  any  man  said  unto  him.  Let 
them  not  fail  to  burn  the  fat  presently,  and  then  take  as 
much  as  thy  soul  desireth  ;  then  he  would  answer  him, 
Nay  ;  but  thou  shalt  give  it  me  now  :  and  if  not,  I  will 
take  it  by  force. 

^*  Wherefore  the  sin  of  the  young  men  was  very  great 
before  the  Lord,  for  men  abhorred  the  offering  of  the 
Lord." 

Malachi  paints  an  equal  degeneracy  :  ^'  A  son  honor- 
eth  his  father,  and  a  servant  his  master  :  if  then  I  be  a 
father,  where  is  mine  honor  ?  and  if  I  be  a  master,  where 
is  my  fear  ?  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts  unto  you,  0  priests, 
that  despise  my  name.  And  ye  say,  Wherein  have  we 
despised  thy  name  ?  Ye  offer  polluted  bread  upon  mine 
altar  ;  and  ye  say,  Wherein  have  we  polluted  thee  ?  In 
that  ye  say,  The  table  of  the  Lord  is  contemptible.  And 
if  ye  offer  the  blind  for  sacrifice,  is  it  not  evil  ?  and  if  ye 
offer  the  lame  and  sick,  is  it  not  evil  ?  offer  it  now  unto 
thy  governor ;  will  he  be  pleased  with  thee,  or  accept 
thy  person  ?  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts.  And  now,  I  pray 
you,  beseech  God  that  he  will  be  gracious  unto  us  :  this 
hath  been  by  your  means  :  will  he  regard  your  persons  ? 


104  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

saith  the  Lord  of  hosts.  Who  is  there  even  among  you 
that  would  shut  the  doors  for  nought  ?  neither  do  ye  kin- 
dle fire  on  mine  altar  for  nought.  I  have  no  i^leasure  in 
you,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  neither  will  I  accept  an 
offering  at  your  hand.  But  ye  have  profaned  it,  in  that 
ye  say,  The  table  of  the  Lord  is  polluted ;  and  the  fruit 
thereof,  even  his  meat,  is  contemptible.  Ye  said  also. 
Behold,  what  a  weariness  is  it  !  and  ye  have  snuffed  at 
it,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts  ;  and  ye  brought  that  which 
was  torn,  and  the  lame,  and  the  sick ;  thus  ye  brought 
an  offering  :  should  I  accept  this  of  your  hand  ?  saith  the 
Lord.  But  cursed  be  the  deceiver,  which  hath  in  his 
flock  a  male,  and  voweth,  and  sacrificeth  unto  the  Lord 
a  corrupt  thing  :  for  I  am  a  great  King,  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts,  and  my  name  is  dreadful  among  the  heathen." 

Moreover,  the  early  outreach  of  man  to  God  reveals  a 
frank  commercial  element. 

Undoubtedly  there  was  an  instinctive  spiritual  grop- 
ing to  find  God,  but  there  w\is  as  undoubtedly  a  very  ma- 
terial quid  pro  quo.  We  may  call  it  the  early  develop- 
ment of  a  sense  of  justice  as  between  God  and  man,  but 
in  common  talk  it  was  a  business  contract.  It  was  fair 
play  or  no  play.  When  God  met  Jacob  at  Bethel,  Jacob 
drove  a  palpable  bargain.  **If  God  will  be  with  me  and 
will  keep  me  in  this  way  that  I  go  and  will  give  me 
bread  to  eat  and  raiment  to  put  on  so  that  I  come  again 
to  my  father's  house  in  peace,  then  shall  the  Lord  be  my 
God." 

AYhen  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  Jeremiah  that 
Israel  was  punished  because  they  worshiped  other  gods, 
men  and  women  rose  up  and  protested  that  they  had  kept 
the  contract  and  that  it  was  the  Lord  w^ho  had  failed  ; 
and  I  do  not  remember  that  men  were  ever  quite  so  bold 
and  outspoken  in  their  idolatry  as  here — where  they  had 
the  women  to  back  them  ! 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  SACRIFICE.  105 

"Then  all  tlie  men  which  knew  that  their  wives  had 
burned  incense  unto  other  gods,  and  all  the  women  that 
stood  by,  a  great  multitude,  even  all  the  people  that  dwelt 
in  the  land  of  Egypt,  in  Pathros,  answered  Jeremiah, 
saying  : 

*'As  for  the  word  that  thou  liast  spoken  unto  us 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  we  will  not  hearken  unto  thee. 
But  we  will  certainly  do  whatsoever  thing  goeth  forth 
out  of  our  own  mouth,  to  burn  incense  unto  the  queen 
of  heaven,  and  to  pour  out  drink-oiferings  unto  her,  as 
we  have  done,  we,  and  our  fathers,  our  kings,  and  our 
princes,  in  the  cities  of  Judah,  and  in  the  streets  of  Jeru- 
salem :  for  then  had  we  plenty  of  victuals,  and  were  well, 
and  saw  no  evil.  But  since  we  left  off  to  burn  incense 
to  the  queen  of  heaven,  and  to  pour  out  drink-offerings 
unto  her,  we  have  wanted  all  things,  and  have  been  con- 
sumed by  the  sword  and  by  the  famine.  And  when  we 
burned  incense  to  the  queen  of  heaven,  and  poured  out 
drink-offerings  unto  her,  did  we  make  her  cakes  to  wor 
ship  her,  and  pour  out  drink-offerings  unto  her,  without 
our  men  ? 

*^  Then  Jeremiah  said  unto  all  the  people,  to  the 
men,  and  to  the  women,  and  to  all  the  peojole  which  had 
given  him  that  answer,  saying.  The  incense  that  ye 
burned  in  the  cities  of  Judah,  and  in  the  streets  of  Jeru- 
salem, ye  and  your  fathers,  your  kings  and  your  princes, 
and  the  people  of  the  land,  did  not  the  Lord  remember 
them,  and  came  it  not  into  his  mind  ?  So  that  the  Lord 
could  no  longer  bear,  because  of  the  evil  of  your  doings, 
and  because  of  the  abominations  which  ye  have  commit- 
ted ;  therefore  is  your  land  a  desolation,  and  an  astonish- 
ment, and  a  curse,  without  an  inhabitant,  as  at  this  day. 
Because  ye  have  burned  incense,  and  because  ye  have 
sinned  against  the  Lord,  and  have  not  obeyed  the  voice 
of  the  Lord,  nor  walked  in  his  law,  nor  in  his  statutes. 


lOG  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

nor  in  his  testimonies ;  therefore  this  evil  is  happened 
unto  you,  as  at  this  day. 

**  Moreover,  Jeremiah  said  unto  all  the  people,  and  to 
all  the  women.  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  all  Judah 
that  are  in  the  land  of  Egypt : 

*'  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel, 
saying  :  Ye  and  your  wives  have  both  spoken  with  your 
mouths,  and  fulhlled  with  your  hand,  saying.  We  will 
surely  perform  our  vows  that  we  have  vowed,  to  burn  in- 
cense to  the  queen  of  heaven,  and  to  pour  out  drink-offer- 
ings unto  her  :  ye  ivill  surely  accomplish  your  vows,  and 
surely  perform  your  vows  " — w^ill  you  ? 

"  Therefore  hear  ye  the  word  of  the  Lord,  all  Judah 
that  dwell  in  the  land  of  Egypt  :  Behold,  I  have  sworn 
by  my  great  name,  saith  the  Lord,  that  my  name  shall 
no  more  be  named  in  the  mouth  of  any  man  of  Judah 
in  all  the  land  of  Egypt,  saying.  The  Lord  God  liveth. 
Behold,  I  will  watch  over  them  for  evil,  and  not  for 
good  :  and  all  the  men  of  Judah  that  are  in  the  land  of 
Egypt  shall  be  consumed  by  the  sword  and  by  the  famine, 
until  there  be  an  end  of  them.  Yet  a  small  number  that 
escape  the  sword  shall  return  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt 
into  the  land  of  Judah  ;  and  all  the  remnant  of  Judah, 
that  are  gone  into  the  land  of  Egypt  to  sojourn  there, 
shall  know  whose  words  shall  stand,  mine,  or  theirs." 

Cicero  testifies  that  the  worship  of  the  gods  had  come 
to  be  by  rites.  The  gods  would  protect  them  so  long 
as  they  punctiliously  performed  the  ceremonies.  It  was 
not  a  question  of  dogmas  or  doctrines,  but  of  the  merest 
formalism,  of  offerings  and  libations,  of  priests  and  cere- 
monies, of  give  and  take. 

The  worst  corruption  of  all  was  the  desecration,  the 
destruction  of  human  life  to  placate  the  Creator  of  life. 
Of  its  origin  we  have  no  account ;  of  its  abolition,  or 
of  the  origin  of  its  authoritative,  final,  and  permanent 


THE  OEIGIN  OF  SACELFICE.  107 

abolition,  it  is  possible  that  we  have  an  account  in  the 
Bible. 

Witchcraft  seemed  to  be  in  mid-career  throughout  the 
world  in  the  last  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and,  like 
a  brook  in  a  smooth  channel,  flowed  on  tranquil  because 
unopposed.  But  in  New  England  the  spirit  of  freedom 
was  astir.  Massachusetts  began  to  question.  Salem,  at 
the  heart's  core  of  Massachusetts,  began  to  question,  and 
they  put  out  the  fires,  and  they  took  down  the  gallows, 
and  they  built  the  heavy  weights  into  stone  walls,  and 
never  any  more  after  that  time  was  a  witch  molested 
here.  But  my  poor  old  Massachusetts  and  my  poor  old 
Salem  are  remembered  not  honorably,  as  they  should  be, 
for  standing  up  fronting  the  world  and  forbidding  the 
witch  to  be  hanged,  but  dishonorably,  because  their  oppo- 
sition made  them  conspicuous  and  the  iniquity  of  the  last 
hangings  centered  on  them.  The  world  noted  that  the 
hanpfins:  was  on  their  soil,  and  did  not  note  that  it  was 
they  who  made  these  hangings  to  be  the  last ! 

So  the  horror  of  human  sacrifice  is  sometimes  concen- 
trated on  the  offering  up  of  Isaac,  without  observing  that 
it  may  be  signalized  because  it  was  final  and  not  because 
it  was  pious.  Never  is  human  sacrifice  even  assumed  to 
be  ordained  of  God  in  the  Bible  after  that  one  sacrifice 
of  Isaac  ;  and  that  is  a  sacrifice  forbidden.  And  just  as  the 
witchcraft  delusion  was  questioned,  resisted,  denounced  by 
Rev.  Mr.  Hale,  of  Beverly,  after  his  own  wife  had  been 
accused,  though  he  was  passive  if  not  active  in  it  before, 
so  it  may  be  that  Abram  had  looked  unopposing  upon 
the  religion  of  human  sacrifice  until  his  own  son  was  in- 
volved, and  then  the  father's  tenderness  sharpened  the 
man's  wits,  and  the  voice  of  God  in  his  soul  reversed  the 
order  of  blood  forever  for  his  whole  nation. 

And  thus  indeed  he  made  good  liis  reputation  that 
was  to  be,  as  a  person  of  great  sagacity,  and  not  mistaken 


108  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

in  his  opinions.  Thus  manifested  he  his  higher  notions 
of  virtue  than  others  had,  and  thus  he  continued,  in  his 
new  home  as  in  his  old,  to  change  men's  opinion  about 
God,  as  Josephus  said  ;  not  only  proclaiming  the  unity  of 
God,  the  creator,  but  his  righteousness  and  the  sacredness 
of  human  life  which  partakes  of  the  divine.  To  a  world 
that  worshiped  with  human  sacrifice,  Abraham  preached 
that  God  was  not  to  be  worshiped  with  human  sacrifice. 

The  Mosaic  institutes  were  orderly,  healthy,  and 
chiefly  decorous.  They  treated  human  sacrifice  as  a  dese- 
cration and  a  horror.  They  were  always  against  cruelty 
and  oppression  except  of  beasts  for  sacrifice.  The 
Hebrews  had  bloody  rites ;  but  while  all  the  surround- 
ing nations  worshiped  many  gods,  they  worshiped  one 
God.  They  were  continually  going  astray  after  false 
gods,  but  as  continually  coming  back  to  the  one  God. 

It  is  easy  then  to  see  that  idol  worship  and  beast  wor- 
ship of  God  were  easily  corruptible  and  often  corrupted. 
But  the  corruption  of  a  principle  or  a  practice  does  not 
invalidate  its  original  sincerity.  Undoubtedly  the  origi- 
nal institutes  of  idolatry  and  the  Mosaic  institutes  of  ani- 
mal worship  were  honest.  They  were  the  pathetic  efforts 
of  men  feeling  after  God  if  haply  they  might  find  him. 
It  was  the  device  of  the  heart  of  man — a  very  rude  and 
savage  heart,  but  an  aspiring  heart — which  God  accepted 
in  its  aspiration  and  answered  with  ever-increasing  spirit- 
uality in  the  sincere  worshiper.  The  good  Lord  pardon 
every  one  that  prepareth  his  heart  to  seek  God,  though 
he  be  not  cleansed  according  to  the  purification  of  the 
sanctuary  ! 

So  the  definite  spiritual  idea  of  one  God  and  a  right- 
eous God  was  constantly,  with  increasing  clearness,  shap- 
ing itself  in  the  Jewish  mind,  even  through  this  material 
idea  and  joractice  of  worship.  Far  back  there  arose,  like 
a  solid  mountain  peak  out  of  surrounding  fog,  a  purer 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  SACRIFICE.  109 

doctrine  about  God  and  divine  things,  gained  volume  and 
strength  through  the  long  ages,  drew  to  itself  all  the  good 
and  wise  men  from  whose  moral  kindred  it  sprang  at  the  be- 
ginning, until  at  length  it  was  taught  with  absolute  author- 
ity, because  with  absolute  truth,  that  God,  a  spirit,  must 
be  worshiped  spiritually  ;  and  that  as  with  human  parents, 
so  with  the  divine,  although  the  ill  desert  of  wrong-doing 
can  never  be  expiated  or  abated  in  the  least  degree,  yet 
the  wrong-doing  itself  can  be  freely  and  fully  forgiven 
upon  honest  repentance,  because  such  repentance  restores 
the  law-breaker  to  duty  and  to  peace,  and  the  law  itself — 
the  law  of  love,  the  only  law — to  its  true  place,  its  right- 
ful honor,  and  its  due  observance.  Appearing  first  in 
protest  against  the  abuse  of  sacrifices,  entwining  itself 
with  ridicule  of  the  heathen  worship  of  many  gods  and 
with  reverent  delineation  of  the  true  God  whom  alone 
Israel  was  taught  to  worship,  it  rose  in  the  times  of  the 
prophets  to  a  forecast  of  the  abolition  of  all  sacrifices. 

With  what  vigor  of  logic  and  vivacity  of  rhetoric  does 
Isaiah  inveigh  against  the  absurdity  of  idol  worship  ! 

•^^Is  there  a  God  besides  me  ?  yea,  there  is  no  God ;  I 
know  not  any. 

^^  They  that  make  a  graven  image  are  all  of  them  vanity ; 
and  their  delectable  things  shall  not  profit ;  and  they  are 
their  own  witnesses  ;  they  see  not,  nor  know  ;  that  they 
may  be  ashamed. 

'^Who  hath  formed  a  god,  or  molten  a  graven  image, 
that  is  profitable  for  nothing  ?  Behold,  all  his  fellows 
shall  be  ashamed  ;  and  the  workmen,  they  are  of  men  :  let 
them  all  be  gathered  together,  let  them  stand  up  ;  yet  they 
shall  fear,  and  they  shall  be  ashamed  together.  The 
smith  with  the  tongs  both  w^orketh  in  the  coals,  and  fash- 
ioneth  it  with  hammers,  and  worketh  it  with  the  strength  of 
his  arms  :  yea,  he  is  hungry,  and  his  strength  faileth  :  he 
drinketh  no  water,  and  is  faint.     The  carpenter  stretcheth 


110  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

out  his  rule  ;  lie  marketh  it  out  with  a  line  ;  he  fitteth  it 
with  planes,  and  he  marketh  it  out  with  the  compass, 
and  maketh  it  after  the  figure  of  a  man,  according  to  the 
beauty  of  a  man  ;  that  it  may  remain  in  the  house. 
He  heweth  him  down  cedars,  and  taketli  the  cyjoress  and 
the  oak,  which  he  strengtheneth  for  himself  among  the 
trees  of  the  forest :  he  planteth  an  ash,  and  the  rain  doth 
nourish  it, 

**Then  shall  it  be  for  a  man  to  burn  :  for  he  will  take 
thereof  and  warm  himself  ;  yea,  he  kindleth  it,  and  bak- 
eth  bread  ;  yea,  he  maketh  a  god,  and  worshipeth  it ;  he 
maketh  it  a  graven  image,  and  falleth  down  thereto.  He 
burneth  part  thereof  in  the  fire  ;  with  part  thereof  he 
eatcth  flesh  ;  he  roasteth  roast,  and  is  satisfied  :  yea,  he 
warmeth  himself,  and  saith,  Aha,  I  am  warm,  I  have  seen 
the  fire  :  and  the  residue  thereof  he  maketh  a  god,  even 
his  graven  image  :  he  falleth  down  unto  it,  and  worship- 
eth it,  and  prayeth  unto  it,  and  saith,  Deliver  me ;  for 
thou  art  my  god. 

^^  They  have  not  known  nor  understood  :  for  he  hath 
shut  their  eyes,  that  they  can  not  see  ;  and  their  hearts, 
that  they  can  not  understand.  And  none  considereth  in 
his  heart,  neither  is  there  knowledge  nor  understanding 
to  say,  I  have  burned  part  of  it  in  the  fire ;  yea,  also  I 
have  baked  bread  upon  the  coals  thereof  ;  I  have  roasted 
flesh,  and  eaten  it  :  and  shall  I  make  the  residue  thereof 
an  abomination  ?  shall  I  fall  down  to  the  stock  of  a  tree  ?  " 

Against  the  complaint  of  foreigners,  that  the  God  of 
Israel  hidetli  himself,  how  earnestly  he  preaches  the  divine 
omnipresence  ! 

''For  thus  saith  the  Lord  that  created  the  heavens; 
God  himself  that  formed  the  earth  and  made  it ;  he  hath 
established  it,  he  created  it  not  in  vain,  he  formed  it  to 
be  inhabited  :  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is  none  else.  I 
have  not  spoken  in  secret,  in  a  dark  place  of  the  earth  :  I 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  SACRIFICE.  Hi 

said  not  unto  the  seed  of  Jacob,  Seek  ye  me  in  vain  :  I 
the  Lord  speak  righteousness,  I  declare  things  that  are 
right." 

With  what  scorn  of  idolatry,  beginning  almost  with  a 
jeer,  he  compares  these  made-np,  helpless  wooden  images 
with  the  great  I  Am  ! 

"  Bel  boweth  down,  Nebo  stoopeth  ;  their  idols  w^ere 
upon  the  beasts,  and  upon  the  cattle  :  your  carriages  were 
heavy  laden  ;  they  are  a  burden  to  the  w^ary  beast. 
They  stoop,  they  bow  down  together ;  they  could  not 
deliver  the  burden,  but  themselves  are  gone  into  captivity. 
And  even  to  your  old  age  I  am  he  ;  and  even  to  hoar 
hairs  will  I  carry  you  :  I  have  made,  and  I  will  bera- ; 
even  I  will  carry,  and  will  deliver  you.  To  whom  will 
•ye  liken  me,  and  make  me  equal,  and  compare  me,  that 
we  may  be  like  ?  They  lavish  gold  out  of  the  bag,  and 
weigh  silver  in  the  balance,  and  hire  a  goldsmith  ;  and 
he  maketh  it  a  god  :  they  fall  down,  yea,  they  worship. 
They  bear  him  upon  the  shoulder,  they  carry  him,  and 
set  him  in  his  place,  and  he  standeth  ;  from  his  place 
shall  he  not  remove  :  yea,  one  shall  cry  unto  him,  yet 
can  he  not  answer,  nor  save  him  out  of  his  trouble. 

*^Eemember  this,  and  show  yourselves  men  :  bring  it 
again  to  mind,  0  ye  transgressors.  Remember  the  former 
things  of  old  :  for  I  am  God,  and  there  is  none  else  ;  I 
am  God,  and  there  is  none  like  me." 

Neither  astronomy  nor  metaphysics  nor  mechanics 
can  lend  any  touch  of  greatness  to  the  absolute  force,  in 
whose  worship  the  whole  institute  of  sacrifice  is  shriveled 
to  nothingness  under  the  prophet's  inspired  portrayal. 

^'  0  Zion,  that  bringest  good  tidings,  get  thee  up  into 
the  high  mountain  :  0  Jerusalem,  that  bringest  good  ti- 
dings, lift  up  thy  voice  with  strengtli  ;  lift  it  up,  be  not 
afraid  ;  say  unto  the  cities  of  Judah,  Behold  your  God  ! 

"•  Who  hath  measured  the  waters  in  the  hollow  of  his 


112  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

hand,  and  meted  out  heaven  with  the  span,  and  compre- 
hended the  dust  of  the  earth  in  a  measure,  and  weighed 
the  mountains  in  scales,  and  the  hills  in  a  balance  ?  Who 
hath  directed  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  or  being  his  coun- 
selor hath  taught  him  ?  With  whom  took  he  counsel, 
and  who  instructed  him,  and  taught  him  in  the  path  of 
judgment,  and  taught  him  knowledge,  and  showed  to 
him  the  way  of  understanding  ? 

"Behold,  the  nations  are  as  a  drop  of  a  bucket,  and 
are  counted  as  the  small  dust  of  the  balance  :  behold,  he 
taketh  up  the  isles  as  a  very  little  thing.  And  Lebanon 
is  not  sufiBcient  to  burn,  nor  the  beasts  thereof  sufficient 
for  a  burnt-offering.  All  nations  before  him  are  as 
nothing  ;  and  they  are  counted  to  him  less  than  nothing, 
and  vanity. 

"  To  whom  then  will  ye  liken  God  ?  or  what  likeness 
will  ye  compare  unto  him  ?  The  workman  melteth  a 
graven  image,  and  the  goldsmith  spreadeth  it  over  with 
gold,  and  casteth  silver  chains. 

"  He  that  is  so  impoverished  that  he  hath  no  oblation 
chooseth  a  tree  that  will  not  rot ;  he  seeketh  unto  him  a 
cunning  workman  to  prepare  a  graven  image  that  shall 
not  be  moved. 

"  Have  ye  not  known  ?  have  ye  not  heard  ?  hath  it 
not  been  told  you  from  the  beginning  ?  have  ye  not  un- 
derstood from  the  foundations  of  the  earth  ?  It  is  he 
that  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth,  and  the  inhabit- 
ants thereof  are  as  grasshoppers  ;  that  stretcheth  out  the 
heavens  as  a  curtain,  and  spreadeth  them  out  as  a  tent 
to  dwell  in.  To  whom  then  will  ye  liken  me,  or  shall  I 
be  equal  ?  saith  the  Holy  One.  Lift  up  your  eyes  on 
high,  and  behold  who  hath  created  these  things,  that 
bringeth  out  their  host  by  number  :  he  calleth  them  all 
by  names,  by  the  greatness  of  his  might,  for  that  he  is 
strong  in  power  ;  not  one  faileth. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  Sxi^CRIFICE.  I13 

"  Hast  thou  not  known  ?  hast  thou  not  heard,  that 
the  everlasting  God,  the  Lord,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary  ?  there  is  no 
searching  of  his  understanding." 

In  comparing  the  ordinances  of  Moses  with  the 
obligations  of  morality,  the  prophets  go  hard  to  destroy 
the  ordinances  altogether. 

"  Is  it  such  a  fast  that  I  have  chosen  ?"  cries  Isaiah, 
impersonating  the  Lord,  "a  day  for  a  man  to  afflict  his 
soul  ?  is  it  to  bow  down  his  head  as  a  bulrush,  and  to 
spread  sackcloth  and  ashes  under  him  ?  wilt  thou  call  this 
a  fast,  and  an  acceptable  day  to  the  Lord  ?  Is  not  this 
the  fast  that  I  have  chosen  ?  to  loose  the  bands  of  wicked- 
ness, to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to  let  the  ojjpressed 
go  free,  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke  ?  Is  it  not  to  deal 
thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou  bring  the  poor 
that  are  cast  out  to  thy  house  ?  when  thou  seest  the 
naked,  that  thou  cover  him  ;  and  that  thou  hide  not  thy- 
self from  thine  own  flesh  ?  " 

Amos  protests  even  more  forcibly  :  *'  I  hate,  I  despise 
your  feast  days,  and  I  will  not  smell  in  your  solemn  as- 
semblies. Though  ye  offer  me  burnt-offerings  and  your 
meat-offerings,  I  will  not  accept  them  ;  neither  will  I  re- 
gard the  peace-offerings  of  your  fat  beasts.  Take  thou 
away  from  me  the  noise  of  thy  songs  ;  for  I  will  not  hear 
the  melody  of  thy  viols.  But  let  judgment  run  down  as 
waters,  and  righteousness  as  a  mighty  stream.  Have  ye 
offered  unto  me  sacrifices  and  offerings  in  the  wilderness 
forty  years,  0  house  of  Israel  ?  But  ye  have  borne  the 
tabernacle  of  your  Moloch  and  Chiun  your  images,  the 
star  of  your  god,  which  ye  made  to  yourselves." 

Jeremiah  utters  a  flat  denial  of  the  Mosaic  authority: 

^'  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel  :  Put 

your  burnt-offerings  unto  your  sacrifices,  and  eat  flesh. 

For  I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers,  nor  commanded  them 

8 


114  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

in  the  day  that  I  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
concerning  burnt-offerings  or  sacrifices.  But  this  thing 
commanded  I  them,  saying,  Obey  my  voice  and  ye  shall 
be  my  people,  and  walk  ye  in  all  the  ways  that  I  have 
commanded  you." 

The  prayer  of  Manasses  might  have  been  offered  by 
Professor  Park  but  for  one  archaic  word  : 

"0  Lord,  Almighty  God  of  our  fathers,  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob,  and  of  their  righteous  seed  ;  who  hast 
made  heaven  and  earth  with  all  the  ornament  thereof  ; 
who  hast  bound  the  sea  by  the  word  of  thy  command- 
ment ;  who  hast  shut  u])  the  deep,  and  sealed  it  by  thy 
terrible  and  glorious  name ;  whom  all  men  fear,  and 
tremble  before  thy  power  ;  for  the  majesty  of  thy  glory 
can  not  be  borne,  and  thine  angry  threatening  toward 
sinners  is  importable  ;  but  thy  merciful  promise  is  un- 
measurable  and  unsearchable ;  for  thou  art  the  Most  High 
Lord,  of  great  compassion,  long-suffering,  very  merciful, 
and  repentest  of  the  evils  of  men.  Thou,  0  Lord,  ac- 
cording to  thy  great  goodness  hast  promised  repentance 
and  forgiveness  to  them  that  have  sinned  against  thee  : 
and  of  thine  infinite  mercies  hast  appointed  repentance 
unto  sinners  that  they  may  be  saved.     Thou  therefore, 

0  Lord,  that  art  the  God  of  the  just,  hast  not  appointed 
repentance  to  the  just,  as  to  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  which  have  not  sinned  against  thee  ;  but  thou 
hast  appointed  repentance  unto  me  that  am  a  sinner  :  for 

1  have  sinned  above  the  number  of  the  sands  of  the  sea. 
My  transgressions,  0  Lord,  are  multiplied  :  my  trans- 
gressions are  multiplied,  and  I  am  not  worthy  to  behold 
and  see  the  height  of  heaven  for  the  multitude  of  mine 
iniquities.  I  am  bowed  down  with  many  iron  bands, 
that  I  can  not  lift  up  mine  head,  neither  have  any  re- 
lease :  for  I  have  provoked  thy  wrath,  and  done  evil  be- 
fore thee  :  I  did  not  thy  will,  neither  kept  I  thy  com- 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  SACRIFICE.  1X5 

mandments ;  I  have  set  up  abominations,  and  have 
multiplied  offenses.  Now,  therefore,  I  bow  the  knee  of 
mine  heart,  beseeching  thee  of  grace.  I  have  sinned,  0 
Lord,  I  have  sinned,  and  I  acknowledge  my  iniquities  : 
wherefore  I  humbly  beseech  thee,  forgive  me,  0  Lord, 
forgive  me,  and  destroy  me  not  with  mine  iniquities. 
Be  not  angry  with  me  forever,  by  reserving  evil  for  me  ; 
neither  condemn  me  into  the  lower  parts  of  the  earth. 
For  thou  art  the  God,  even  the  God  of  them  that  repent; 
and  in  me  thou  wilt  show  all  thy  goodness  :  for  thou 
wilt  save  me,  that  am  unworthy,  according  to  thy  great 
mercy.  Therefore  I  will  praise  thee  forever  all  the  days 
of  my  life  :  for  all  the  powers  of  the  heavens  do  praise 
thee,  and  thine  is  the  glory  for  ever  and  ever.     Amen." 

With  an  ever-increasing  spirituality  in  the  leaders, 
and  an  ever-diminishing  bloodshed  among  the  people, 
came  at  length  the  total  extinction  of  the  sacrifices  them- 
selves— in  Jesus  Christ — the  cessation  of  organic  offerings 
to  an  inorganic  Deity. 

Does  that  seem  a  small  thing  ? 

The  world  was,  apparently,  never  more  strongly  in- 
trenched in  the  worship  of  idols  and  in  the  idolatrous 
worship  of  God  than  on  the  day  when  the  babe  was  born 
in  Bethlehem.  Caesar  Augustus,  endowed  with  a  genius 
for  pacification  and  organization,  joined  the  gods  of  the 
conquered  peoples  to  the  gods  of  Rome,  and,  setting  new 
gods  of  the  Caesars  on  the  thrones  of  heaven,  compacted 
the  temporal  power  and  the  spiritual  power,  welded  poli- 
tics and  religion  into  a  system  which  held  the  world  in 
thrall — but  in  a  peace,  too,  that  promised  to  make  the 
thrall  permanent. 

But  the  babe  in  the  manger  was  stronger  than  Caesar 
with  his  Pantheons.  Under  the  truth  which  fell  from 
Christ's  lips,  that  great  and  splendid  community  of  gods 
crumbled  and  vanished  away  forever. 


116  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Foreyer,  too,  with  idolatry,  vanished  the  idolatrous 
worship  of  God.  "When  the  legions  of  Titus  fell  upon  Je- 
rusalem, the  fires  were  still  burning,  though  more  faintly, 
upon  her  altars ;  the  temple  was  still  standing,  though 
in  paling  splendor.  Of  that  temple  was  left  not  one 
stone  upon  another,  and  the  sacred  flame  was  extin- 
guished, never  to  be  rekindled.  If  that  devout  and  pious 
Jew,  Sir  Moses  Montefiore,  had  been  able  to  carry  out 
his  patriotic  purpose  and  restore  the  holy  city  to  its  an- 
cient glory,  still  not  one  drop  of  wanton  blood  would 
pollute  the  worship  of  God.  Eeligion  in  this  free  coun- 
try is  free,  but  the  life  of  lamb  and  goat  and  turtle-dove 
is  safe  from  sacred  slaughter ;  for  not  a  Jew  of  all  the 
sons  of  Abraham  would  revive  the  rite  of  blood-atone- 
ment. So  far,  at  least,  Christ  was  successful.  The 
whole  Western  world  ceased  to  preach  the  bajotism  of 
blood  sacrifice  for  expiation,  but  everywhere  was  preached 
the  baptism  of  repentance  for  the  remission  of  sins.  And 
the  world  has  gone  forward  in  the  path  upward,  till,  if 
King  Hezekiah's  great  reform  were  started  in  Washing- 
ton, with  his  thousand  bullocks  and  ten  thousand  sheep, 
he  would  instantly  be  arrested  for  cruelty  to  animals. 

Eenan  considers  the  most  important  part  of  the  his- 
tory of  Judaism  to  be  the  complete  transformation  of 
Jahveh,  the  national  god  of  the  Jews,  from  a  merely  local 
and  provincial  to  a  universal  deity.  After  having  been 
looked  upon  as  one  petty  god  among  others,  he  came 
during  this  period  to  be  accepted  by  the  Jews  as  one  Su- 
preme Creator,  and,  in  the  popular  conception,  a  just 
God,  which  he  had  not  been  before ;  thus  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  element  of  morality  into  religion  was  accom- 
plished. 

I  have  not  myself  been  able  to  see  anywhere  in  the 
Old  Testament  that  the  God  of  the  Jews  was  ever  held 
up  to  them  by  their  religious  teachers  as  local  or  unjust. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  SACRLFICE.  I17 

He  seems  to  me  always  to  have  been  preached  as  the  one 
supreme  God  and  as  a  just  God,  representing  the  highest 
Hebrew  ideal  of  justice,  and  in  this  lay  the  difference 
between  their  theology  and  that  taught  by  the  other 
nations.  I  am  delighted  to  find  my  Bible-reading  con- 
firmed by  the  learned  Baethgen.  After  an  exhaustive  in- 
vestigation, he  maintains  that  the  religions  of  the  other 
Semitic  peoples  were  polytheistic  in  character,  while 
Israel's  religion  was  ofiicially  monotheistic,  and  as  such 
differed  essentially  from  all  those  of  cognate  races — from 
all  those  of  the  Syrians,  Arabs,  Ethiopians,  Moabites, 
Phoenicians,  who  surrounded  the  Jews,  and  by  whom 
their  religious  ideas  could  have  been  influenced.  He 
quotes  with  minute  examination  the  song  of  Deborah, 
which  is  accounted  the  oldest  or  one  of  the  oldest  docu- 
ments of  the  Pentateuch,  and  he  shows  that  the  princi- 
pal differentiating  thoughts  of  Israel's  religion  are  in  this 
song.  He  examines  the  word  Elohim,  and  shows  it  to  be 
like  many  other  words  plural  in  form,  but  not  indicating 
plurality  of  meaning.  He  finds  nothing  to  warrant  the 
idea  that  Jehovah  was  only  a  national  god  and  not  the 
supreme  God. 

But,  in  support  of  our  view  that  God  is  the  God  of 
all  nations,  the  help  of  all  nations,  and  not  of  the  Jews 
alone,  he  does  find  that,  while  the  Jews  were  so  advanced 
in  their  theory  of  one  God  that  he  frankly  admits  with 
Kittel,  another  German  critic,  that  he  can  not  account 
for  it  except  on  a  theory  of  special  personal  revelation, 
he  sees  in  all  the  polytheism  of  the  Semitic  races  a  trend 
toward  monotheism. 

God  was  leading  them,  also,  but  in  slower  ways,  to  a 
knowledge  of  himself.  As  we  saw  Melchizedek  and  Ptah- 
Hotep  feeling  after  and  finding  the  God  of  righteousness, 
so  down  to  the  very  last  ages  before  Christ  we  see  the 
pagan  world  ever  and  anon  in  their  great  men  rising  to 


118  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

the  height  of  divine  things  with  true  inspiration ;  as 
Syrus  teaching  the  Eomans  to — 

*'  Listen  to  thy  conscience  ;  it  will  punish  even  where 
there  is  no  law. 

"  He  who  loses  honor  has  nothing  more  to  lose. 

"To  command  one's  self  is  the  noblest  empire. 

*^Keep  thy  word  even  to  an  enemy, 

'*  It  is  better  to  receive  an  injury  than  to  do  one. 

'^Forgive  others  often  ;  thyself  never. 

*'  God  looks  to  see  if  the  hands  are  pure  ;  not  if  they 
are  full. 

''  The  extreme  justice  is  almost  always  an  extreme  in- 
justice. 

"  Discuss  all  that  thou  hearest ;  prove  all  that  thou 
believest. " 

And  Clement  of  Alexandria  distinctly  recognizes  the 
voice  of  God  in  what  he  as  well  as  we  called  the  heathen 
world:  "Perchance,  too,  philosophy  was  given  to  the 
Greeks  directly  and  primarily  till  the  Lord  should  call 
the  Greeks.  So,  then,  the  barbarian  and  Hellenic  phi- 
losophy has  torn  oif  a  fragment  of  eternal  truth. 

"For  the  knowledge  of  God  these  utterances  [written 
by  Plato,  Socrates,  Xenophon,  Clean thes,  the  Pytha- 
goreans] through  the  inspiration  of  God  may  suffice." 

Pythagoras  and  Ovid  were  inspired  of  God  to  utter 
the  law  of  the  conservation  of  force  :  "  All  things  change  ; 
nothing  perishes." 

Thus  through  thought  and  character  we  see  men  ad- 
vancing slowly  to  a  belief  in  one  righteous  God  and  to  a 
knowledge  of  his  w'ill  and  ways.  But  the  Jews  had  it  in 
the  beginning.  Whence  did  they  get  it  ?  They  slowly 
advanced  from  the  cessation  of  human  sacrifices,  throuofh 
the  gradual  diminution  of  animal  sacrifices,  to  their  aboli- 
tion. By  the  time  of  Christ  the  existence  of  one  supreme 
God  was  so  confirmed  in  the  Jewish  mind   that  they 


THE  ORIGIN   OF   SACRIFICE.  II9 

never  again  fell  into  idolatry,  even  while  all  the  world 
outside  of  them  was  still  not  only  worshiping  many  gods, 
but  making  new  ones.  I  can  not  understand  it  except 
on  the  theory  that  there  is  a  God  who  knew  in  the  be- 
ginning that  man  whom  he  had  made  could  get  on  just 
so  fast  and  just  so  far  of  himself.  In  art,  in  society,  in 
organization,  man  seems  to  have  been  able  to  develop  of 
himself  from  his  impulse  originally  implanted. 

In  spiritual  growth  he  was  feeble,  feebly  reaching  up 
toward  God,  falling  constantly  into  the  same  pit— idola- 
try— whether  he  were  a  savage  Hottentot,  an  aesthetic 
Greek,  or  a  Koman  citizen.  It  was,  therefore,  not  by  a 
late  rectification  of  a  mistake,  but  in  the  divine  plan 
from  the  beginning,  to  endow  a  special  race  with  special 
traits,  fitting  it  to  receive,  in  ways  we  do  not  understand, 
a  special,  limited,  yet  large  and  accurate  idea  of  God, 
which  should  grow  in  that  race,  and  through  that  race 
be  delivered  to  the  world  in  the  person  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

History,  recorded  in  the  Bible,  and  science,  inyesti- 
gating  outside  the  Bible,  agree  that  the  way  by  which 
humanity  approached  God  is  a  way  of  deyelopment. 
Therefore  it  is  the  divine  way.  In  that  sense  God  or- 
dained sacrifice,  and  in  no  other.  He  placed  man  in  the 
world  v/ith  a  moral  nature  and  a  spiritual  nature  capable 
of  being  developed.  The  story  of  their  development  is 
minutely  told  in  the  Bible  by  Moses  and  the  prophets — 
told  outside  the  Bible  by  Herbert  Spencer  and  the  natural- 
ists. It  is  God  leading  man  step  by  step — each  step  a  lit- 
tle higher,  a  little  nearer  to  himself — from  a  conception 
of  a  being  a  little  stronger  than  man  to  our  conception  of 
a  being  beyond  finite  conception.  What  other  way  is 
there  ?  Can  a  being  just  above  a  brute  conceive  of  our 
God  ?  And  will  not  our  conception  of  God  increase  with 
increasing  knowledge  till  it  is  as  much  beyond  the  pres- 


120  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

ent  idea  as  the  present  idea  is  beyond  the  idea  of  the 
Patagonian  ? 

If  God,  as  seems  necessary  to  believe,  gaye  an  extraor- 
dinary impulse  to  Israel  in  knowledge  of  himself,  it  was 
only  in  two  respects — that  he  was  one,- the  only  God,  and 
that  he  was  a  righteous  God.  As  regards  all  else,  their 
ideas  were  as  crude  as  those  of  the  neighboring  peoj^les  ; 
and  to  retain  that  idea,  to  prevent  its  constant  degrada- 
tion to  the  worship  of  wood  and  stone,  their  leaders  were 
forced  to  forbid  all  indulgence  in  art.  The  whole  8Bs- 
thetic  nature  of  the  nation  had  to  be  repressed  that  its 
religious  nature  might  not  be  hindered.  The  sense  for 
beauty,  as  Matthew  Arnold  would  say,  had  to  be  sacri- 
ficed to  the  sense  for  righteousness.  The  Hebrews  were 
forbidden  to  paint  a  picture  or  to  make  a  statue,  because 
all  around  them  pictures  and  statues  were  inextricably 
interwoven  with,  consecrated  to,  the  idea  of  many  gods — 
of  wicked  gods — and  would  necessarily  take  their  minds 
o3  from  the  elevating  idea  of  a  spiritual  God. 

Modern  research  has  revealed  to  us  Egypt  fall  of 
paintings,  statues,  idolatry.  Four  hundred  years  of 
slavery  had  familiarized  even  the  ignorant  with  the  art 
of  that  ancient  civilization.  But  their  great  leader  had 
lived  at  the  court  of  the  king,  and  knew  every  form  of 
luxury  and  vice  and  effeminacy  that  had  fastened  upon 
the  vrorship  of  many  gods,  and  had  changed  the  statue, 
which  may  have  been  at  first  a  mere  representation  and 
symbolism  of  the  deity,  into  the  deity  itself.  Fresh  from 
the  statues  and  the  paintings  which  research  is  now  re- 
vealing to  us,  Moses,  as  soon  as  he  got  his  people  well 
away  from  them,  made  his  prohibitory  law  :  "  Thou  shalt 
not  make  unto  thee  ai^y  graven  image  or  axy  likeness  of 
anything." 

The  agnostic  says,  looking  upon  this  development  in 
man  of  the  idea  of  God  :  '*  God  did  not  make  man — man 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  SACRinCE.  121 

made  God";  and  reasons  thence  that  there  is  no  God. 
I  say  :  man  conceived  God,  therefore  God  made  man. 
Nature  from  the  first  protoplasm  has  been  rushing  for- 
ward to  the  production  of  a  creature  capable  of  reason- 
ing, loying,  hating,  changing  ;  capable  of  receiving  the 
world  from  nature,  and  working  it  up  and  molding  it 
into  new  forms,  combining  forces  into  new  forces  and  as- 
suming new  features  ;  capable  of  reaching  out  beyond 
this  world  and  discovering  f.acts  and  laws  of  the  universe  ; 
capable  of  reaching  out  beyond  the  material  universe, 
and  framing  from  the  moral  and  spiritual  laws  of  his 
own  world  the  conception  of  a  spiritual  universe  with  a 
supreme  reason,  a  supreme  love.  Along  the  same  line  of 
reasoning  by  which  I  know  only  this  planet  surrounded 
by  its  few  round  disks  and  its  few  shining  spots,  but  infer, 
and  fully  believe  in  and  accept  by  faith,  a  great  universe 
of  worlds  beyond  sight  and  sound  and  reach  ;  so,  know- 
ing only  such  realities  of  the  spiritual,  invisible  universe 
as  love  and  reason,  acting  in  this  world,  but  acting  so 
strongly  that  they  dominate  the  world,  I  infer,  and  by 
faith  accept,  an  invisible  spiritual  universe  with  a  supreme 
Creator — the  divine,  infinite  reason  whose  name  is  Love. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  KEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT  OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 
SACRIFICES. 

The  attitude  of  Christ  and  the  apostles  toward  all 
the  Mosaic  institutes,  wherein  the  ordinance  of  sacrifice 
is  imbedded,  was  one  of  liberal  conservatism,  occasionally 
of  cordial  indignation,  generally  of  moderation  and  char- 
ity. They  seldom  denounced,  but  they  always  supplanted. 
When  the  man  was  cured  of  leprosy,  Christ  recommended 
him  to  go  and  offer  the  gift  that  Moses  commanded  ;  but 
we  can  readily  see  that  the  customary  and  legal  certifica- 
tion of  the  cure  was  at  the  moment  of  paramount  impor- 
tance. 

When  his  hungry  disciples,  walking  through  the  corn- 
fields, began  to  pluck  the  corn  and  eat  it,  the  Pharisees 
accused  them  of  breaking  the  law  of  Moses.  He  might 
have  refuted  them  with  the  law  of  Moses,  for  Moses  had 
expressly  said  that  a  hungry  man  might  pluck  the  corn 
though  he  might  not  put  a  sickle  to  it.  He  did  not  do 
this,  however,  but  made  it  an  occasion  to  declare  his  own 
supremacy  over  the  Mosaic  law.  He  did  not  pull  down 
the  temple  and  the  altar,  but  preached  God  above  them 
both.  He  did  not  denounce  the  Mosaic  law,  but  pro- 
claimed that  love — not  slain  beasts — love  is  the  fulfilling 
of  the  law. 

^^The  first  of  all  the  commandments  is,  The  Lord 
our  God  is  one  Lord  :  And  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 


NEW   TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  123 

God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength  ;  this  is  the  first 
commandment.  And  the  second  is  like,  namely,  this: 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  There  is  none 
other  commandment  greater  than  these.  On  these  two 
commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets." 

And  the  law-ridden,  sacrifice-burdened  scribe  was  so 
struck  with  the  beauty,  the  simplicity  of  this  new  laAV, 
that  he  gave  instant  assent :  ''  Well,  Master,  thou  hast 
said  the  truth  :  for  there  is  one  God  ;  and  there  is  none 
other  than  he  :  And  to  love  him  with  all  the  heart,  and 
with  all  the  understanding,  and  with  all  the  soul,  and 
with  all  the  strength,  and  to  love  his  neighbor  as  himself, 
is  more  than  all  whole  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices. 

**  And  when  Jesus  saw  that  he  answered  discreetly,  he 
said  unto  him,  Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God." 

In  the  very  same  chapter  in  which  he,  as  it  were,  in- 
dorses Moses  and  the  prophets,  he  also,  as  it  were,  abol- 
ishes them  :  ^'  The  law  and  the  prophets  were  until  John  ; 
since  that  time  the  kingdom  of  God  is  preached."  When 
the  famished  people  pleaded  that  Moses  gave  their  fathers 
bread  from  heaven  to  eat,  and  therefore  they  believed  on 
him,  Christ  met  them  with  a  broad  denial  :  **  Verily  Mo- 
ses gave  you  not  that  bread  from  heaven.  My  Father 
giveth  you  the  true  bread  from  heaven,  /am  the  bread 
of  life.  I  am  the  living  bread  which  came  down  from 
heaven  "  ;  and  when,  in  these  word-battles,  he  confound- 
ed the  sticklers  for  orthodoxy — Jewish  orthodoxy — and 
touched  the  living,  vital  truths  underlying  all  perishable 
forms,  his  adversaries  were  ashamed,  and  all  the  people 
rejoiced  for  all  the  glorious  things  that  were  done  by 
him,  for  there  is  always  in  the  heart  of  humanity  a  sen- 
sibility to  truth,  a  recognition  of  truth,  a  leaping  up  to 
truth,  which  makes  good  man's  claim  to  the  divine  na- 
ture, which  is  the  truth  itself. 


124  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

To  the  people  he  was  kind,  pitiful,  comforting,  sus- 
taining, sympathetic,  excusing.  His  sarcasm,  indigna- 
tion, denunciation,  were  poured  out  upon  the  teachers, 
the  preachers — scribes  and  Pharisees,  who  insisted  on  the 
letter  of  the  law  and  disregarded  its  spirit,  although  even 
they  had  in  the  course  of  generations  greatly  mitigated 
its  bloodiest  features,  so  truly  had  the  divine  vitality  of 
righteousness  worked  out  the  peaceable  fruits  of  right- 
eousness. Always  Christ's  attitude  was  of  respect  toward 
the  sincere  believer,  of  loathing  and  denunciation  toward 
the  hypocritical  professor  and  false  teacher.  He  held  the 
Mosaic  law,  including  the  sacrifices,  as  a  real  though 
imperfect  act  of  religion,  to  be  destroyed  by  fulfilling  its 
central  and  ultimate  idea — love.  He  would  destroy  its 
ritual  by  diffusing  its  spirit.  The  statue  is  the  fulfilling 
of  the  mold.  The  statue  perfected,  the  use  of  the  mold 
is  served  and  the  mold  is  broken. 

When  once  and  again,  under  the  stinging  lash  of  our 
Lord,  all  the  oxen,  sheep,  and  doves,  candidates  then 
present  for  sacrifice,  fled  or  fluttered  out  of  the  courts  of 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  they  carried  with  them  for  all 
time,  before  as  well  as  after,  and  for  all  places,  within  as 
well  as  without  the  temple,  his  universal  and  absolute 
condemnation  of  any  and  all  animal  sacrifices  to  such  a 
being  as  the  invisible  incorporeal  Deity.  That  stern  lash 
of  the  mildest  of  men  and  the  most  daring  of  reform- 
ers wrote  on  each  of  those  destined  victims,  scored  or 
scared  by  it,  his  own  personal  and  final  excuse  from  the 
altar  and  the  sacrificial  knife,  together  with  a  full  dis- 
charge of  altars  and  sacrificial  knives  from  henceforth 
forever.  But  this  was  not  the  whole  lesson.  The  lesson 
of  that  lash  and  those  words,  was  retrospective,  as  well 
as  present  and  prospective.  Governed  by  the  same  rea- 
sons, stim.ulated  by  the  same  motives,  sanctified  by  the 
same  high,  moral  purpose,  that  lash  furnished  for  the 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  125 

ages  to  come  an  authoritative  certificate  to  the  following 
effect,  namely  :  It  meant  that  the  whole  Jewish  sacri- 
ficial code,  the  law  and  the  practice  under  it,  were  abso- 
lutely without  divine  authority.  The  only  alternative 
was,  and  was  thus  pronounced  to  be,  that  the  said  code 
was  altogether  of  man. 

It  puts  our  Lord  in  square  internecine  conflict  with 
the  whole  sacrificial  system  of  the  Jews,  with  Exodus 
and  Leviticus,  but  it  places  him  in  perfect  accord  with 
Isaiah  and  Micah  and  many  a  psalmist.  Those  victims 
fled  not  so  much  because  he  bade  their  owners  take  them 
away,  though  he  did  that  also,  as  because  he  himself 
drove  them  away.  Further,  he  must  have  driven  all 
those  sacrificial  birds  and  beasts  away  from  the  altar  and 
out  of  the  court,  assuredly  not  because  he  was  at  cross- 
purposes  with  a  genuine  appointment  of  God,  but  exactly 
for  the  opposite  reason,  namely,  because  he  was  alto- 
gether at  one  with  the  will  of  the  Father,  who  therefore 
had  never  authorized  such  sacrifices.  For  the  use  of 
human  prayer  and  real  worship  Christ  cleared  the  ground 
of  those  inattentive,  unappreciative,  and  incapable  four- 
foots  and  fledglings  ;  not  because  the  times  had  then 
just  outgrown  a  certain  form  of  worship,  rude  and  primi- 
tive indeed,  yet  for  the  times  valid  and  valuable,  but 
because  the  thing  referred  to — namely,  animal  sacrifice 
— was  form,  and  form  only,  invalid,  and  worse  than 
valueless,  without  expression  or  implication  of  divine 
worthiness  at  all  ;  but  the  exact  contrary.  Because  ani- 
mal sacrifices  were  not  made  for  God,  not  fit  for  God,  not 
worthy  of  God,  but  the  very  opposite,  because  animal 
sacrifices  were  made  for  idols.  Just  as  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  our  Lord  had  perfected  other  precepts  of  the 
decalogue,  lifting  at  once  whatever  he  touched  into  the 
true  moral  atmosphere,  he  would  supply  what  was  lack- 
ing in  the  second,  forbidding  not  only  animal  sacrifices 


126  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

to  idols,  but  the  transfer  of  such  sacrifices  to  Jehovah  ; 
for  ])lainly  animal  sacrifices  could  not  raise  the  idol  to 
God's  level,  but  to  worship  God  just  as  the  idol  was  wor- 
shiped might  and  did  bring  God  down  to  the  level  of 
the  idol,  degrading  him  and  debasing  his  pretended 
worshipers. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  overrate  and  overstate  the 
import  of  this  narrative.  Far  more  likely  is  it  that  we 
underrate  the  import  of  Christ's  words  and  deeds.  No 
man  ever  said  more  in  little  than  he.  He  could  com- 
press volumes  in  a  word,  and  more  than  all  volumes  in 
one  passion.  The  occasion  under  notice  was  a  passover, 
the  nation's  great  anniversary.  It  was  the  annual  pan- 
Jewish  reunion  ;  the  elite  of  Jewry,  all  influential  Jewry, 
was  there.  All  had  come  up  to  Jerusalem  to  worship  ;  that 
is,  to  offer  sacrifices  after  the  traditions  of  the  Fathers. 
The  sacrificial  code  required  sacrifices  in  great  numbers. 
This  requirement  constituted  a  demand.  The  demand 
created  a  corresponding  supply.  The  man  from  Gyrene 
could  not  bring  his  calf  or  lamb  with  him  ;  he  expected 
to  buy  it  on  the  spot.  The  man  of  Bethlehem  was  aware 
of  the  demand,  and  had  the  supply  prepared  to  meet  it. 
Supply  must  meet  the  demand  at  the  time  and  place  of 
the  demand  itself.  The  presence  of  candidates  for  sacri- 
fice in  the  courts  of  the  temple  is  a  necessary  incident  of 
the  institution.  To  strike  a  blow  at  this  incident  is  to 
strike  a  blow  at  the  institution,  and  this  is  what  was 
intended. 

But,  while  he  bids  the  owners  of  tlie  cattle  to  remove 
them,  he  does  not  trust  it  solely  in  their  hands.  He 
helps  to  expel  them.  He  helps  not  only  with  words,  but 
with  a  woven  scourge.  He  drives  not  to  the  altar,  but 
away  from  the  altar  ;  not  into  the  court,  but  out  of  the 
court  of  the  temple  into  the  open  street  or  open  country. 
The  rattle  of  coin  on  the  broker's  board,  the  clatter  of 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  127 

voices  higgling  over  tlie  price  of  a  calf,  miglit  well  enougli 
disgust  a  spiritual  man.  But  all  that  could  have  been 
prevented  by  preventing  the  sale  alone.  That  did  not 
make  it  necessary  to  drive  the  intended  victims  away. 
The  expulsion  indicates  tlie  true  aim  of  the  blow- 
namely,  at  the  head  of  the  whole  system.  The  intended 
victims  expelled,  the  institution  itself  could  not  live  a 
moment,  and  his  act  of  expelling  them  shows  that  he 
meant  to  kill  the  institution.  The  Jews  so  understood 
it.  They  saw  that  he  meant  an  internecine  struggle. 
The  Sanhedrim  said  :  "  He  or  we  must  die."  Their  table 
and  all  their  living,  their  business  as  curators  of  the  Jew- 
ish religion,  their  name  and  fame — all  were  at  stake.  Our 
Lord  knew  it  as  well  as  they.  He  knew  that  the  contest 
would  cost  his  life.  He  knew,  also,  that  he  should  win, 
and  that  the  victory  would  be  worth  even  all  that  it  cost. 

His  answer  to  the  Samaritan  woman  is  negatively 
and  positively  conclusive.  She  wants  his  decision  be- 
tween Gerizim  and  Jerusalem  for  sacrifice  ;  and  he  says, 
''In  neither  place  and  never;  the  Father  seeketh  true 
and  spiritual  worshipers."  This  decision  of  our  Lord  is 
universal ;  always  and  everywhere  he  wants  spiritual  wor- 
ship, and  that  only.  This  absolutely  and  for  all  time 
excludes  animal  sacrifice. 

Herein,  as  in  all  else  that  he  did,  our  Lord  spake  and 
acted  by  virtue  of  that  clear  and  just  moral  insight  which 
is  true  inspiration.  Whoever  has  this  moral  insight  is 
inspired,  though  he  have  written  never  a  line  in  the 
Bible — witness  our  Lord  himself  inspired  far  beyond  all 
the  sacred  writers  put  together — and  whoever  has  not 
this  moral  insight  is  uninspired,  though  he  have  written 
much  and  in  the  Bible. 

The  feast  of  the  passover,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the 
last  supper  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt,  and  was  kept  as  an 
emancipation  celebration  by  the  Jews.     It  matters  not 


128  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

whether  the  story  was  framed  to  explain  the  feast,  or 
whether  the  feast  sprang  from  the  fact,  or  whether  the 
story  and  the  feast,  one  or  both,  were  the  reconsecration 
to  God  of  an  old  rite  of  animal  worship.  It  would  be,  in 
any  case,  but  such  a  happening  as  he  sees  any  day  who 
beholds  the  Roman  devotees  slowly  and  painfully  ascend- 
ing on  their  knees  the  scala  santa  of  the  Lateran,  de- 
voutly believing  that  they  are  the  sacred  steps  over  which 
Christ  ascended  to  his  trial  before  Pilate's  judgment  seat. 
But  Christ  was  not  born  in  Bethlehem  when  Julius  Csesar 
climbed  on  his  knees  the  steps  of  the  Capitol  on  the  op- 
posite hill  to  avert  by  this  act  of  humility  the  anger  of 
Nemesis,  the  goddess  hostile  to  great  fortunes.  Our 
Lord  was  but  ''the  turbulent  Christ"  to  the  Emperor 
Claudius  when  he  painfully  kneeled  up  the  same  steps  in 
gratitude  to  his  gods  for  the  conquest  of  Britain.  If 
Moses  rebaptized  a  rite  of  animal  worship  into  recogni- 
tion of  one  supreme  God,  he  did  what  many  and  many  a 
time  reformers  have  done  in  endeavoring  to  purify  and 
elevate  the  spirit  of  a  custom  whose  observance  they 
could  not  prevent. 

The  same  night  in  which  he  was  betrayed,  in  the 
same  spirit  of  accommodation  and  aspiration,  our  Lord 
took  the  feast  of  the  passover,  eliminated  from  it  every 
possible  relic  of  cruelty  and  error,  turned  it  into  a  fare- 
well feast  to  his  disciples,  made  it  the  tenderest  memorial 
to  himself  and  an  emancipation  celebration  for  all  the 
world — emancipation  from  the  old  covenant  of  blood  to 
the  new  covenant  of  purity.  The  old  passover  was  a 
meal  for  strengthening  the  body ;  the  Lord's  farewell 
supper  was  chiefly  for  the  consolation  and  sustenance  of 
the  soul.  It  was  a  sad  festival,  for  the  man  Christ  Jesus 
was  parting  from  his  friends,  and  the  shadow  of  his 
troubled  spirit  fell  upon  their  loving,  anxious,  ignorant 
hearts.     The  passover  had  been  a  hurried  feast,  but  the 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  120 

Jast  supper  was  a  long  love  feast,  with  time  enough  not 
only  to  satisfy  hunger,  but  enough  for  rash,  headlong,  but 
real  love  to  protest  against  the  Master's  object-lesson  in 
humility  ;  time  enough  for  the  curious  but  not  overcon- 
fident disciples  to  urge  the  confident  love  of  John  upon 
an  anxious  question  which  was  answered  and  not  rebuked  ; 
time  enough  for  the  avarice  of  Judas,  attending  under 
the  disguise  of  affection,  to  see  itself  detected  and  dis- 
missed to  the  sincerity  of  cjime,  to  the  eternal  punish- 
ment of  remorse  and  human  infamy  ;  time  enough  for  a 
conversation  whose  fragmentary  report  is  our  most  dear 
and  cherished  legacy  of  the  human  heart  of  Christ.  It 
was  a  glorious  supper,  for  in  its  gentle  and  solemn  friendli- 
ness was  symbolized  and  signalized  the  redemption  of  the 
■world  from  the  old  domain  of  blood  and  beasts  to  the 
new  domain  of  love  and  light. 

The  world  has  been  long  in  learning  the  lesson  which 
is  yet  but  partially  learned.  The  very  disciples  for 
whose  companionship  at  this  feast  their  Master  pas- 
sionately longed  knew  so  little  of  his  spirit  and  his  mis- 
sion that  they  lifted  their  lips  from  the  cup  of  his 
blessing  to  bicker  about  precedence.  We  have  not  gone 
so  far  beyond  them  that  we  can  afford  to  scoff.  We 
harden  his  words  into  a  coarse  literalism,  we  reject  his 
tender,  pure,  and  sacred  symbols,  and  insist  upon  a  re- 
volting and  impossible  interpretation  whose  hideous  feat- 
ures we  strive  to  veil  under  the  thin  disguise  of  miracle. 
With  the  moan  of  a  thousand  generations  in  his  ears,  the 
moan  of  hapless  beasts  massacred  in  vain  expiations,  the 
sinless  son  of  God  held  up  the  bread  that  gives  but  not 
surrenders  life,  and  made  it  the  parting  token  of  his 
willing  sacrifice,  leading  all  martyrdoms  for  the  truth. 
**  TJiis  is  my  body."  To  the  innocent  blood  of  sacrificial 
slaughter  crying  unto  him  from  the  ground  of  the  whole 
wide  earth  he  listened  and  made  answer ;  he  took  the 
9 


130  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

cup  and  said  unto  them  :  *'  TJiis  is  my  blood  of  the  new 
testament."  What  was  it?  Not  blood  at  all,  but  the 
fruit  of  the  vine,  a  real  stimulant.  What  was  it  ?  Not 
flesh  at  all,  but  the  fruit  of  the  ground,  a  real  nutri- 
ment. 

It  was  a  symbol  he  had  often  used  to  represent  the 
close  yital  connection  between  himself  and  humanity,  the 
succor  he  would  impart  to  souls.  Sometimes  he  had 
been  well-nigh  impatient  at  their  failing  to  find  the  true 
spiritual  content  of  his  teaching,  which  he  had  well  and 
often  explained. 

"  How  can  this  man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat  ?"  asked 
the  heavy-browed  Jews.  ''I  am  the  living  bread,"  an- 
swered Jesus.  "I  am  that  bread  of  life.  He  that  be- 
lieveth  on  me  hath  everlasting  life."  But,  more  blind 
than  the  blindest  scribe  and  more  stolid  than  the  stolid- 
est  Pharisee,  without  the  excuse  of  a  long-established  cus- 
tom of  atonement  by  beast  and  of  expiation  by  blood, 
without  the  excuse  of  the  natural  hostility  to  innovation, 
there  are  thousands  among  us  to-day  who  turn  away  from 
Christ's  purification  and  spiritualization  of  worship,  and 
when  asked,  '^  How  can  this  man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat  ?  " 
reply,  *'By  a  miracle  !"  We  are  so  determined  to  wor- 
ship with  blood  and  sacrifice,  we  are  so  resolved  to  go 
back  to  the  beggarly  elements  of  this  pagan  world  from 
which  Christ  came  to  free  us,  that  we  summon  the  Lord 
from  his  spiritual  heavens  into  a  loaf  of  bread  in  order 
that  there  may  be  something  to  sacrifice  ! 

This  is  not  an  improvement  on  the  Jewish  ritual ;  it 
is  a  retrogression  to  the  pagan  ritual.  If  there  must  be 
a  sacrifice,  it  is  better  to  sacrifice  an  animal  than  a  man. 
If  that  man  is  the  prince  of  life,  the  Son  of  God,  then 
to  sacrifice  him  is  a  crime  without  a  name.  If  there 
must  be  a  priest  to  sustain  religion,  better  that  it  should 
be  a  Jew  slaying  a  bullock  upon  an  altar  than  God  cruci- 


NEW   TESTAMENT   SOLVENT.  131 

fying  Ills  beloved  Son  upon  the  cross,  because  that  is  a 
profanation  of  the  heavens. 

It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  this  with  the  respect  due  to 
thought  and  sincerity.  It  is  in  direct  and  degrading  op- 
position to  the  teaching  and  trend  of  our  Lord.  If  it 
could  be  true,  it  would  be  shocking  beyond  expression.  It 
would  substitute  for  the  tenderest  rite  of  Christianity 
the  grossest  rite,  the  most  horrible  appetite,  of  heathen- 
dom. 

The  same  night  in  which  he  was  betrayed,  the  same 
night  on  which  he  took  the  bread  and  blessed  it  and  said, 
**  This  is  my  body,"  he  said  :  "I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the 
branches."  The  same  Jesus  said  :  ''  I  am  the  good  shep- 
herd. I  am  the  door  of  the  sheep."  Did  he  mean  to 
teach  that  by  a  miracle  Christ  becomes  instantly  a  vege- 
table, a  shepherd,  a  wooden  door  ?  But  such  a  tran sub- 
stantiation is  just  as  authoritative,  just  as  reasonable, 
just  as  important,  no  more  absurd,  and  far  less  loath- 
some. 

To  the  rational,  reverent,  inquiring  mind  the  only  ex- 
planation given  is  that  it  is  a  mystery.  But  a  grotesque, 
brutalizing,  retrograde,  unnatural  transformation  is  not  a 
mystery  ;  it  is  a  monstrosity.  When  Christ  said,  "  This 
is  my  body,"  his  body  was  intact  and  present.  There  is 
no  pretense  that  his  body  then  and  there  was  the  loaf  of 
bread  or  entered  into  the  loaf  of  bread,  or  had  any  rela- 
tion to  the  loaf  of  bread,  except  by  the  perfectly  natural 
process  of  reception  and  assimilation.  Christ  gave  no 
hint  of  any  miracle  performed  or  required.  There  is  no 
more  reason  why  believers  should  be  taught  that  they  eat 
the  dead  Christ  than  why  the  apostles  should  have  been 
taught  that  they  ate  the  living  Christ.  To  crave  a  mira- 
cle to  satisfy  or  gratify  the  religious  nature  is  as  if  one 
should  refuse  to  be  enlightened  on  the  mechanical  secret 
of  a  phonographic  doll  because  he  loves  mystery,  while 


132  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

all  around  him  in  every  human  being  lies  the  insoluble 
mystery  of  life. 

We  dwell  in  mysteries — in  the  solemn,  eternal  un- 
known. 

Without  controversy,  great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness. 
God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh.  He  is  not  manifest  in  the 
loaf  of  bread,  in  the  glass  of  wine.  It  is  only  that  some 
men  say  he  is  there.  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  preached 
unto  the  Gentiles,  believed  on  in  the  world,  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself,  is  a  mystery  which  even  the 
angels  desire  to  look  into.  We  speak  the  wisdom  of  God 
in  a  mystery,  even  the  hidden  wisdom  which  God  or- 
dained before  the  world  to  our  glory — a  mystery  which 
we  shall  never,  if  ever,  resolve  until  God  ordains  it,  after 
the  world,  to  his  own  glory. 

*^  Behold  I  show  you  a  mystery.  We  shall  not  all 
sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be  changed  " — the  unspeakable 
mystery  of  death.  We  go  down  to  the  gates  with  our 
beloved,  peering  in  vain  beyond,  seeing  nothing  beyond, 
yet  feeling  sure  that  in  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  this  corruptible  must  put  on  incorruption,  this  mor- 
tal must  put  on  immortality  ;  but  only  when  this  cor- 
ruptible lias  put  on  incorruption,  only  when  this  mortal 
has  put  on  immortality,  shall  death  be  swallowed  up  in 
victory.  This  side  the  gates  death  prevails,  bnt  beyond 
the  gates — *'  0  Death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  0  Grave, 
where  is  thy  victory  ?  "  Lost  in  everlasting  life.  In  the 
presence  of  real  mystery,  our  toy  mysteries  seem  the  coarse 
and  trivial  things  they  are. 

The  apostles  assimilated  and  disseminated  the  thought 
and  purpose  of  Christ  very  quickly  and,  on  the  whole,  very 
thoroughly. 

They  were,  above  all,  Jews,  lovingly  and  loyally  sub- 
ject to  the  law  of  Moses,  desirous  above  all  things  not 
to  be  considered  disloyal,  anti-Judaistic.     They  did  not 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  I33 

understand  Christ,  but  they  had  been  in  touch  with  him, 
and  they  at  least  knew  that  the  law  of  Moses  was  to  be 
fulfilled  by  love.  In  their  first  assembling  after  they  had 
recovered  breath  from  the  unexpected  downfall  of  their 
leader,  and  had  a  little  readjusted  themselves  after  the 
whirlwind  of  disappointment,  amazement,  bewilderment 
that  befell  them,  they  promulgated  their  wonderful  new 
gospel,  in  which  was  no  sacrifice,  but  "Eepentandbe 
baptized,  every  one  of  you,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ, 
for  the  remission  of  sins." 

"Repent  ye,  therefore,  and  be  converted,  that  your 
sins  may  be  blotted  out." 

But  Peter  will  not  be  misunderstood  to  mean  that 
this  is  a  new  departure — radicalism,  a  despite  to  the  old 
faith.  He  insists  that  it  is  the  continuance,  the  corollary 
of  that  very  faith.  It  is  no  new  deity,  but  "  the  God  of 
Abraham,  and  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob,  the  God  of  our 
fathers,  that  hath  glorified  his  son  Jesus.  Those  things, 
which  God  before  hath  showed  by  the  mouth  of  all  his 
prophets,  that  Christ  should  suffer,  he  hath  so  fulfilled. 
Whom  the  heaven  must  receive  until  the  times  of  res- 
titution of  all  things,  which  God  hath  spoken  by  the 
mouth  of  all  his  holy  prophets  since  the  world  began. 
For  Moses  truly  said  unto  the  fathers,  A  prophet  shall 
the  Lord  your  God  raise  up  unto  you  of  your  breth- 
ren, like  unto  me  ;  him  shall  ye  hear  in  all  things  what- 
soever he  shall  say  unto  you.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass, 
that  every  soul,  which  will  not  hear  that  prophet,  shall 
be  destroyed  from  among  the  people.  Yea,  and  all  the 
prophets  from  Samuel  and  those  that  follow  after,  as 
many  as  have  spoken,  have  likewise  foretold  of  these 
days.  Ye  are  the  children  of  the  prophets,  and  of  the 
covenant  which  God  made  with  our  fathers,  saying  unto 
Abraham,  And  in  thy  seed  shall  all  the  kindreds  of  the 
earth  be  blessed.     Unto  you  first  God,  having  raised  up 


13i  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

his  Son  Jesus,  sent  him  to  bless  you,  in  turning  away 
every  one  of  you  from  his  iniquities." 

Stephen,  in  his  last  bold  words  which  cost  him  his 
life,  turned  aside  from  his  rapid  sketch  of  Jewish  history, 
at  the  gates  of  Solomon's  temple,  to  declare  :  ''Howbeifc 
the  Most  High  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  hands  ; 
as  saith  the  prophet.  Heaven  is  my  throne,  and  earth  is 
my  footstool :  what  house  will  ye  build  me  ?  saith  the 
Lord  :  or  what  is  the  place  of  my  rest  ?  Hath  not  my 
hand  made  all  these  things  ?  " 

When  a  Koman  soldier  and  officer,  a  Christian  who 
had  never  heard  of  Christ,  sent  to  bring  Peter  to  declare 
Christ  unto  him,  Peter  even  to  him  preached  the  gospel 
of  Christ  as  nothing  new,  but  a  fulfilling  of  the  old  law. 
'*  To  him  give  all  the  prophets  witness  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  him  shall  receive  remission  of  sins." 

He  expressly  declares  that  the  Mosaic  law  was  insuffi- 
cient. 

'^Be  it  known  unto  you  therefore,  men  and  brethren, 
that  tlirough  this  man  is  preached  unto  you  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins : 

^'  And  by  him  all  that  believe  are  justified  from  all 
things,  from  which  3^e  could  not  be  justified  by  the  law 
of  Moses."  It  was  with  great  difficulty  that  this  new 
doctrine  of  remission  of  sins  by  repentance  was  grafted 
upon  the  old  doctrine  of  remission  of  sins  by  rites  and 
sacrifices.  When  Paul  and  Barnabas  first  went  up  to 
Antioch  to  open  the  door  of  faith  to  the  Gentiles,  a  group 
of  formalists  promptly  followed  them  to  spoil  the  whole 
movement  by  preaching  to  the  Antioch  people,  ''Except 
ye  be  circumcised  after  the  manner  of  Moses,  ye  can  not 
be  saved." 

We  may  suppose  they  were  sincere  followers  of  Christ, 
but  they  misapprehended  the  very  pith  and  point  of  his 
teachings ;  and  because  a  foolish  friend  is  the  worst  of 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  I35 

foes,  they  made  so  much  trouble  that  a  delegation,  headed 
by  Paul  and  Barnabas,  was  sent  to  Jerusalem  to  lay  it  be- 
fore the  apostles  for  decision. 

A  council  of  the  apostles  and  elders  was  convened— if 
the  apostles  were  Oongregationalists ;  an  assembly  or  synod 
if  they  were  Presbyterians — at  which  Peter  spoke  elo- 
quently on  the  liberal  side,  saying  in  substance  :  ^*  Men 
and  brethren,  God  bare  witness,  giving  the  Gentiles  the 
Holy  Ghost,  just  as  he  did  unto  us,  and  put  no  difference 
between  us  and  them,  purifying  their  hearts  by  faith,  as 
they  had  no  law,  but  saving  us  who  had  the  law,  also  by 
faith  in  Christ,  and  not  by  law.  Why,  therefore,  should 
we  insist  upon  putting  their  necks  under  the  yoke  of  the 
law  which  neither  our  fathers  nor  we  were  able  to  bear, 
and  which  is  no  longer  of  any  use  even  to  us  ?  " 

The  argument  was  unanswerable,  and  Paul  and  Bar- 
nabas immediately  clinched  it  by  reciting  to  the  council 
the  proofs  of  their  ministry  in  the  effect  upon  their  hear- 
ers. Simeon  followed  in  a  speech  of  entire  liberality, 
gentleness,  and  discrimination,  justifying  his  judgment 
by  precedent  and,  as  many  a  judge  has  done,  first  decid- 
ing upon  equity  and  then  bringing  the  law  to  uphold  it. 
An  official  letter  missive  was  sent  to  the  petitioners,  en- 
tirely vindicating  Paul  and  Barnabas,  repudiating  the 
commandment  of  circumcision,  and  laying  upon  the  con- 
verts only  ^'  these  necessary  things  :  That  ye  abstain 
from  meats  offered  to  idols,  and  from  things  strangled, 
and  from  fornication." 

Thus  formally  was  the  law  of  Moses  pronounced  obso- 
lete by  the  highest  Christian  authority. 

But  it  was  to  come  up  yet  again. 

After  another  long  missionary  tour,  Paul  and  Barnabas 
again  returned  to  Jerusalem  to  report  to  the  council. 

Their  disciples  had  been  very  unwilling  to  let  them 
go.     Some  went  so  far  as  to  declare  emphatically  that 


l^Q  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

they  spoke  by  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  for- 
bidding the  departure  of  Paul  and  Barnabas ;  but  Paul 
was  accustomed  to  judge  for  himself  as  to  when  the  Holy 
Spirit  spoke  and  when  it  was  only  human  wish,  and  he 
kept  on. 

The  brethren  welcomed  them  cordially  and  convened 
the  council ;  listened  to  Paul's  account  of  his  great  suc- 
cess among  the  Gentiles,  and  passed  a  resolution  of  con- 
gratulation, but  then  gently  suggested  that  he  was  going 
a  little  too  fast ;  that  he  was  making  trouble  at  home  ; 
not  with  them,  but  with  the  ill-informed  who  could  not 
quite  understand  this  wild  new  commingling  of  Jew  and 
Gentile. 

"When  they  heard  it,  they  glorified  the  Lord,  and 
said  unto  him.  Thou  seest,  brother,  how  many  thousands 
of  Jews  there  are  which  believe  ;  and  they  are  all  zealous 
of  the  law  :  And  they  are  informed  of  thee,  that  thou 
teachest  all  the  Jews  which  are  among  the  Gentiles  to 
forsake  Moses,  saying  that  they  ought  not  to  circumcise 
their  children,  neither  to  walk  after  the  customs. 

"What  is  it  therefore?  the  multitude  must  needs 
come  together  :  for  they  will  hear  that  thou  art  come.  Do 
therefore  this  that  we  say  to  thee  :  We  have  four  men 
which  have  a  vow  on  them  ;  them  take  and  purify  thyself 
with  them,  and  be  at  charges  with  them,  that  they  may 
shave  their  heads  :  and  all  may  know  that  those  things, 
whereof  they  were  informed  concerning  thee,  are  noth- 
ing ;  but  that  thou  thyself  also  walkest  orderly,  and 
keepest  the  law. 

"As  touching  the  Gentiles  which  believe,  we  have 
written  and  concluded  that  they  observe  no  such  thing, 
save  only  that  they  keep  themselves  from  things  offered 
to  idols,  and  from  blood,  and  from  what  is  strangled,  and 
from  fornication. 

"  Then  Paul  took  the  men,  and  the  next  day  purify- 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  I37 

ing  himself  with  them  entered  into  the  temple,  to  signify 
the  accomplishment  of  the  days  of  purification,  until  that 
an  offering  should  be  offered  for  every  one  of  them." 

I  almost  wonder  that  Paul  did  it,  though  there  is  a 
good  deal  to  be  said  on  both  sides ;  but  all  his  trouble  sub- 
sequently recorded  came  from  the  doing,  or  at  least  came 
in  spite  of  the  doing.  The  attempted  compromise,  even 
if  it  was  justifiable,  absolutely  failed.  The  Jews  did 
not  wish  to  be  conciliated,  and  faster  than  Paul  could 
exculpate  himself  from  one  slander,  they  inculpated  him 
in  another. 

"  When  the  seven  days  were  almost  ended,  the  Jews 
which  were  of  Asia,  when  they  saw  him  in  the  temple, 
stirred  up  all  the  people,  and  laid  hands  on  him.  Crying 
out.  Men  of  Israel,  help  :  This  is  the  man  that  teach eth 
all  men  everywhere  against  the  people,  and  the  law,  and 
this  place  :  and  further  brought  Greeks  also  into  the 
temple  and  hath  polluted  this  holy  place.  (For  they  had 
seen  before  with  him  in  the  city  Trophimus  an  Ephesian, 
whom  they  supposed  that  Paul  had  brought  into  the 
temple. ) 

**And  all  the  city  was  moved,  and  the  people  ran 
together  :  and  they  took  Paul,  and  drew  him  out  of  the 
temple  :  and  forthwith  the  doors  were  shut,"  and  all 
Jerusalem  was  in  an  uproar.  The  head  of  the  police 
was  called  and  came  on  the  run  with  a  posse  of  soldiers  and 
dragged  Paul  out  of  the  mob,  more  dead  than  alive,  up 
the  stairs  and  into  the  castle.  But  Paul  with  his  prompt 
presence  of  mind  spoke  to  the  captain,  who  was  ap- 
parently astonished  to  find  by  his  address  that  Paul  was 
a  gentleman  and  a  scholar.  "  Canst  thou  speak  Greek  ? 
Art  not  thou  that  Egyptian  which  before  these  days 
madest  an  uproar  and  leadest  out  into  the  wilderness  four 
thousand  men  that  were  murderers  ?  "  Poor  Paul  !  not 
only  beaten  and  dragged  by  the  populace,  but  thought 


138  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

a  seditious  ragamuffin  by  the  authorities.  So  much  for 
his  docile  obedience  to  the  council !  So  much  for  their 
gentle  attempt  at  compromise  ! 

Paul  answered  with  spirit:  *'I  am  a  man  which  am 
a  Jew  of  Tarsus,  in  Cilicia,  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city. 
I  beseech  thee  to  suffer  me  to  speak  unto  the  people." 

Paul  was  so  strong  a  rationalist  that  he  was  not  able 
to  bring  himself  to  believe  that  people  would  not  listen 
to  reason.  But  to  this  mob  he  appealed  in  vain  through 
the  *' great  silence '^  with  which  they  heard  him  at  the 
beginning.  The  moment  he  asserted  his  mission  to  the 
Gentiles  they  renewed  their  yell  and  would  have  pro- 
ceeded to  violence  but  for  the  interposition  of  the  offi- 
cials. 

We  need  not  follow  Paul  through  his  trials,  the 
dangers  which  he  braved,  the  martyrdoms  which  he  re- 
pelled by  his  adroitness  or  his  courage.  But  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  he  took  a  higher  tone.  Undoubtedly  he 
was  thinking  of  this  result  of  council  when  he  wrote  to 
the  Galatians  :  ^'As  many  as  desire  to  make  a  fair  show 
in  the  flesh,  they  constrain  you  to  be  circumcised,  only 
lest  they  should  suffer  persecution  for  the  cross  of 
Christ." 

He  had  compromised  a  little  under  the  influence  of 
James  and  the  elders  and  had  suffered  persecution  just 
the  sa,me.  Very  likely  he  was  thinking  of  this  experience 
and  justifying  it  to  himself  when  he  declared  :  '^IJnto  the 
Jews  I  became  as  a  Jew  that  I  might  gain  the  Jews,  for 
the  gospel's  sake." 

His  final  summary  of  opinion  is  :  "Behold  I,  Paul,  say 
unto  you,  Christ  is  become  of  no  effect  unto  you,  whoso- 
ever of  you  are  justified  by  the  law  ;  ye  are  fallen  from 
grace."     Could  repudiation  be  stronger  ? 

His  treatment  of  the  passover  is  simple  and  final  to 
all  who  respect  his  authoritv  : 


'NEW  TESTAMENT   SOLVENT.  139 

'^  For  even  Christ  our  passoyer  is  sacrificed  for  ns. 
Therefore  let  us  keep  the  feast,  not  with  old  leaven, 
neither  with  the  leaven  of  malice  and  wickedness  ;  but 
with  the  unleavened  bread  of  sincerity  and  truth." 

It  might  have  been  New  England  professors  of  the- 
ology whom  Paul  describes  when  proclaiming  the  authen- 
ticity of  his  gospel  and  his  right  to  preach  it  : 

"  Who  also  hath  made  us  able  ministers  of  the  new 
testament ;  not  of  the  letter,  but  of  the  spirit :  for  the 
letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life.  But  their  minds 
were  blinded  :  for  until  this  day  remaineth  the  same  vail 
untaken  away  in  the  reading  of  the  old  testament ;  which 
vail  is  done  away  in  Christ. 

*'But  even  unto  this  day,  when  Moses  is  read,  the 
vail  is  upon  their  heart." 

In  the  Gospel  to  the  Hebrews  the  theme  of  the  sacri- 
fices is  most  fully  treated  and  Christ's  relation  to  it  most 
minutely  delineated  because  it  was  addressed  to  Jews. 
This  idea  is  entirely  one  of  substitution.  The  old  priest- 
hood, the  old  ritual,  is  to  be  swept  away  and  Christ  is  to 
be  all  in  all. 

We  have  misunderstood  it.  We  do  indeed  sweep  away 
the  old  ritual,  the  old  priesthood,  but,  instead  of  substi- 
tuting for  it  Christ,  a  spirit,  God,  a  spirit,  to  be  wor- 
shiped in  spirit  and  in  truth,  we  substitute  a  ritual  of 
Christ,  a  priesthood  of  Christ,  a  sacrifice  of  Christ.  The 
true  substitution  is  that  of  Paul,  the  substitution  of  the  abo- 
lition of  all  sacrifices  in  Christ.  Our  substitution  is  false — 
the  substitution  of  continuance  of  sacrifice  in  Christ.  This 
is  the  great  argument  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  We 
have  already  the  comparison  with  Melchizedek,  showing 
Melchizedek  to  be  of  a  higher  order  than  the  Levitic 
priesthood,  because  in  Abram  the  Levitic  priesthood  paid 
tithes  to  him  ;  and  Christ,  pronounced  a  priest  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek,  which  is  no  order  at  all,  because 


24-0  -A.  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Melchizedek  had  no  predecessor  and  no  successor.  The 
writer  adds  to  this  a  wealth  of  comparisons  showing  the 
imperfectness  of  the  Mosaic  priesthood  and  service  and 
the  perfection  of  Christ  as  a  substitute  for  all  priest- 
hood and  service  ;  but  this  is  no  argument  for  us.  We 
have  no  Mosaic  ritual  to  be  thrown  off ;  we  never  ob- 
served it.  The  argument  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
was  successful.  The  altars  were  broken  and  were  never 
restored  ;  sacrificial  blood  was  forever  stanched.  Yet 
we  go  on  using  the  language  of  paganism  and  Judaism 
as  if  Christ  were  crucified  but  yesterday.  The  New 
Testament  writers  assure  us  that  the  Old  Testament 
sacrifices  were  but  a  temporary  and  earthly  figure,  and 
we  insist  on  using  their  language  as  if  altars  and  burnt- 
offerings  were  a  divine  and  permanent  fact.  Blood-atone- 
ment was  the  precursor  of  repentance-atonement.  We 
make  only  the  quality  of  the  blood,  lamb's  blood,  pre- 
figure the  quality  of  the  blood,  Christ's  blood.  Such  a 
gospel  of  the  blood  of  Christ  is  as  much  more  horrible 
than  a  gospel  of  bullock's  blood  as  the  murder  of  a  man 
is  more  horrible  than  the  slaying  of  beasts.  There  was 
an  annulling  of  the  old  commandment,  argues  Paul,  be- 
cause of  its  weakness  and  unprofitableness  and  the  bring- 
ing in  of  a  better  hoj^e.  Could  condemnation  of  the  Mo- 
saic ritual  be  more  clearly  given  ?  For  if  the  first  cove- 
nant had  been  faultless,  then  Avould  no  place  have  been 
sought  for  a  second.  The  first  covenant  had  ordinances 
of  divine  service  and  a  worldly  sanctuary,  for  there  was  a 
tabernacle  made  with  the  candlestick  and  the  table  and 
show-bread,  and  the  veil,  the  golden  censer,  and  the  ark 
of  the  covenant  overlaid  roundabout  with  gold,  and  the 
golden  pot  that  had  manna,  and  Aaron's  rod  that  bud- 
ded, and  the  cherubim  of  glory — of  all  which,  like  Paul 
himself,  we  can  not  now  speak  particularly,  which  was 
a  figure  for  the  time  then  present  in  which  were  offered 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.         141 

both  gifts  and  sacrifices  that  could  not  make  him  that 
did  the  service  perfect  as  pertaining  to  the  conscience. 

But  Christ,  being  come  a  high  priest  of  good  things 
to  come,  makes  a  new  covenant,  and  this  it  is,  '^saith 
the  Lord  :  I  will  put  my  laws  into  their  mind  and  write 
them  in  their  hearts,  and  they  shall  not  teach  every  man 
his  neighbor,  saying,  know,  the  Lord,  for  all  shall  know 
me."  The  tabernacle  of  the  new  time  shall  be  greater 
and  more  perfect  than  the  old — not  made  with  hands,  that 
is,  no  tabernacle  at  all.  Moses  took  the  blood  of  calves 
and  goats  and  sprinkled  all  the  vessels  of  the  ministry, 
for  without  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission  un- 
der the  Mosaic  law ;  but  our  religion  has  no  such  pre- 
cept, for  Paul  taught  so  successfully  that  the  blood  of 
bulls  and  goats  can  not  take  away  sin,  that  we  have  never 
sprinkled  a  church  with  blood.  *^In  burnt-offerings  and 
sacrifices  for  sin  thou  hast  had  no  pleasure,  which  are 
offered  by  the  law.  Having,  therefore,  brethren,  bold- 
ness to  enter  into  the  holiest,  by  the  blood  of  Jesus,  by  a 
new  and  living  way  which  he  hath  consecrated  for  us, 
through  the  veil — that  is  to  say,  his  flesh — let  us  draw 
near  with  a  true  heart  in  full  assurance  of  faith,  having 
our  hearts  sprinHed  from  an  evil  conscience  and  our 
bodies  washed  with  pure  water.  By  him,  therefore,  let 
us  offer  the  sacrifice  of  praise  to  God  continually — that 
is,  the  fruit  of  our  lips.  To  do  good  and  communicate 
forget  not,  for  with  such  sacrifices  God  is  well  pleased." 
Paul  so  thoroughly  disbelieves  and  discards  the  law  that 
he  upbraids  the  foolish  Galatians  for  reverting,  after  their 
acceptance  of  Christ,  to  the  weak  and  beggarly  elements 
of  their  pagan  Judaism.  He  begs  them  to  stand  fast  in 
the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  them  free,  and 
not  be  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of  Judaistic  bond- 
age. Over  and  over  and  over,  but  not  with  too  much 
iteration,  as  our  observation  shows,  he  affirms  that  the 


142  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

law  is  nothing.  All  tlie  law  is  fulfilled  in  one  word 
— ^love.  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 
"Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God."  "Bear  ye  one 
another's  burdens  and  so  fulfill  the  law  of  Christ." 

Not  with  too  much  iteration,  for  still,  eighteen  centu- 
ries afterward,  we  cling  to  the  phraseology  and  the  ideas 
of  paganism,  and  the  veil  is  upon  our  hearts.  We  re- 
fuse to  Christ  his  work,  to  Paul  his  victory,  and  main- 
tain that,  nnder  Christ,  as  under  Moses  and  Jupiter  and 
all  the  gods  of  this  world,  without  shedding  of  blood 
there  is  no  remission  of  sin.  Now,  here,  under  the  full 
shining  of  the  sun  of  righteousness,  our  pulpits  and  our 
religious  press  declare  that  "the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel 
as  Paul  stated  them  will  and  must  stand  through  all  time 
as  the  faith  of  the  Church  ;  and  the  words  which  he 
nsed^  or  their  equivalents  when  his  words  are  translated 
into  other  languages,  must  also  stand  as  the  received  and 
established  language  of  the  Church  for  these  doctrines. 
The  Church  can  not  outgrow  either  the  doctrines  or  the 
words,  or  so  revise  either  as  to  remove  from  either  the 
Pauline  stamp.  What  was  good  enough  for  the  age  in 
which  the  apostle  lived  is  good  enough  in  any  age.  What 
was  a  ^form  of  sound  words'  in  his  day  can  not,  either 
as  a  form  or  in  its  contents,  become  obsolete  by  the  lapse 
of  time.  Saints  and  sinners  to-day  need  just  what  saints 
and  sinners  needed  when  Paul  lived  and  preached  and 
wrote. 

"The  apostle  had  several  favorite  expressions  which 
he  often  used  as  defining  the  work  of  Christ — *  Christ 
died  for  us ' ;  *  Christ  died  for  our  sins ' ;  '  reconciled  to 
God  by  the  death  of  his  Son ' ;  ^  redemption  through  his 
blood ' ;  '  Christ  our  passover  is  sacrificed  for  us ' ;  Christ 
'who  gave  himself  for  our  sins' ;  Christ  ^set  forth  to  be 
a  propitiation  through  faith  in  his  blood';  'being  now 
justified  by  his  blood ' ;   these  are  specimens  of  Paul's 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  I4.3 

rhetoric  in  stating  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  sacrificial  and 
expiatory  work  in  behalf  of  sinners. 

"  No  advance  in  culture  and  no  improYements  in  the- 
ology can  or  should  supersede  Paul's  Epistles,  or  substi- 
tute for  them  either  different  ideas  or  different  and  better 
modes  of  expressing  Christian  ideas." 

-And  no  more  full  and  deliberate  statement  can  be 
made  than  this  of  the  conviction  that  Paul  preached  in 
Tain  and  Christ  died  in  yain.  Paul  preached  to  a  people 
bound  in  the  thongs  of  the  Mosaic  law,  and  still  within 
sight  of  the  cross.  Yet  he  preached  to  so  little  purpose 
that  the  eighteen  centuries  since  have  not  redeemed  us 
from  one  error  of  doctrine  or  practice  ;  but  we  are  bound 
by  the  same  thongs,  we  have  no  more  conscience  of 
Christ,  no  ignorance  has  become  less  dense,  no  misappre- 
hension has  become  obsolete  !  Eighteen  centuries  have 
brought  us  no  step  from  paganism,  and  what  was  fit  for 
a  people  used  to  blood-atonement  is  proper  for  us  ! 

This  is  the  decree  of  unreason.  It  is  too  gross  and  too 
prominent  an  error  to  permit  any  softening  of  terms.  It 
is  the  utter  upturning  and  negation  of  the  teaching  of 
Christ  and  Paul.  It  is  pulling  down  what  they  died  to 
upbuild.  The  Church  has  outgrown  both  the  doctrine 
and  the  words.  Christ  has  not  died  in  vain.  Paul  did 
not  preach  in  vain.  What  was  not  only  good  enough, 
but  divinely  good  for  the  age  of  Paul,  is  obsolete  and  in- 
appropriate to  this  age.  Paul's  age  was  fettered  upon 
the  altar  of  sacrifice.  Paul's  preaching,  Christ's  life  and 
death,  have  ransomed  this  age  altogether  from  sacrifice, 
and  there  remains  for  us  only  repentance  for  the  remission 
of  sins.  What  was  a  wise,  practical  form  of  sound  words 
in  Paul's  days  is  but  a  historical,  not  a  practical,  form  of 
sound  words  for  us.  Saints  and  sinners  to-day  do  not 
need  many  a  form  of  sound  words  which  both  needed  in 
P-auFs  day,  for  not  a  saint  or  sinner  of  us  all  is  in  any 


14:4:  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

danger  of  slaying  a  turtle-dove  or  two  young  pigeons  for 
the  forgiveness  of  sins. 

Nearly  every  phrase  which  is  here  cited  from  the 
Bible  should  be  obsolete — should  be  used  never  except  in 
its  appropriate  historical  sense.  They  have,  as  this  writer 
says,  ^Mmparted  their  own  coloring  to  the  rhetoric  of 
piety,"  and  a  frightful  coloring  it  is,  ghastly  and  re- 
pulsive : 

"  There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood 
Drawn  from  Immanuel's  veins, 
And  sinners  plunged  beneath  that  flood 
Lose  all  their  guilty  stains." 

Nothing  but  long  usage  prevents  us  from  seeing  the  hid- 
eousness  of  the  picture.  The  Jews  were  familiar  with 
blood.  We  recoil  from  it.  It  was  to  them  a  term  of 
purification.  For  us  blood  does  not  cleanse.  It  stains. 
It  is  the  stain  of  stains.  For  us  there  is  no  sacrificial 
atoning  quality  in  blood.  It  is  the  sign  manual  of  the 
gravest  crime. 

"Reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  his  Son,"  ** re- 
demption through  his  blood,"  '*  Christ  our  passover," 
*'set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation  through  faith  in  his 
blood  " — they  are  all  relics  of  Judaism  and  of  the  pagan 
element  in  Judaism.  Paul  was  laboring  to  show  it ;  to 
convince  the  Jews  that  the  law — of  which  propitiation  and 
justification  were  a  component  part^ — was  good  for  noth- 
ing, was  obsolete.  By  the  deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh 
be  justified.  The  righteousness  of  God — alone,  without 
the  law,  outside  of  the  law,  having  nothing  to  with  the 
law — is  manifested  in  Christ  Jesus,  proclaiming  redemp- 
tion through  repentance.  All  the  propitiation  which  God 
wants  is  repentance,  which  is  technically  no  propitiation 
at  all.  Faith  in  Christ  is  not  faith  in  the  blood  of  his 
body,  but  in  the  inspiration  of  his  spirit. 

We  have  better  authority  than  the  pulpit  or  the  press 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  I45 

for  saying  that  such  language  will  become  obsolete  by  the 
lapse  of  time.  Paul  himself  declared  that  Christ  had 
Hotted  out  the  handwriting  of  ordinances  that  was  against 
us  and  contrary  to  us,  and  took  it  out  of  the  way,  nail- 
ing it  to  his  cross.  I  think  we  shall  presently  be  content 
to  let  it  stay  there  and  not  try  to  keep  it  alive,  or  in  the 
semblance  of  life,  by  cherishing  it  as  the  essential  phrase- 
ology of  all  religion.  The  wrappings  of  a  mummy  would 
not  decorate,  but  disguise  and  disgust,  the  living  man. 

Atonement,  expiation,  propitiation,  are  not  the  doc- 
trines of  Christ,  were  not  taught  by  Christ.  They  are 
not  in  Christianity.  They  were  preached  in  the  Old 
Testament,  but  the  object  of  the  New  Testament  is  to 
destroy  them.  They  were  accepted  by  Christ  and  the 
apostles  as  a  historical  fact ;  they  were  recognized  as  an 
aspiration  and  effort  of  humanity  toward  order  and  right- 
eousness and  spirituality ;  greatly  successful  as  against 
idolatry  and  atheism,  but  against  the  law  of  Christ  so 
entirely  imperfect  and  inadequate  as  to  merit  only  dis- 
missal. They  were  characterized  as  but  the  school-master 
to  bring  Israel  to  Christ,  to  be  discarded  when  the  master 
came,  as  the  servant  is  discarded  by  the  child  whom  he 
has  led  to  school  when  the  school  is  reached. 

The  atonement  of  Christ  is  at-one-ment ;  the  uplifting 
of  man  out  of  his  beast  nature  into  his  divine  spiritual 
nature,  and  thus  making  him  at  one  with  God.  It  is  not 
averting  the  wrath  of  God  by  slaying  an  innocent  animal 
victim  in  the  stead  of  a  guilty  human  criminal ;  still  less 
is  it  averting  God's  wrath  by  slaying  God's  holy  Son  in- 
stead of  a  guilty  criminal.  It  is  God,  in  the  fullness  of 
time,  giving  to  humanity  the  impulse  of  a  divine  partak- 
ing, showing  man  his  kinship  with  God,  saving  him 
from  sin  by  revealing  its  real  character  in  contrast  with  a 
nature  wholly  human  yet  wholly  divine  and  sinless ;  so 
drawing  man  to  God,  not  by  the  law  of  a  carnal  com- 
10 


146  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

mandment,  but  by  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  The 
worship  of  God  by  the  slaughter  of  beasts  characterizes 
the  progress  of  man  up  from  his  own  animal  nature 
toward  perfect  spiritual  being.  The  use  of  the  phrase- 
ology of  animal  worship  is  the  trail  of  the  serpent  still 
over  us  all,  though  the  serpent  has  writhed  past.  The 
at-one-ment  of  Christ  is  the  final  rescue  of  man  from  the 
control  of  these  lower  forces  into  union  with  God  in 
spirit  and  in  truth. 

When  Christ,  after  the  resurrection,  summed  up  to 
his  disciples  the  object  of  his  death,  what  was  it  ?  The 
great  and  final  atonement — a  sacrifice  of  life  to  take  away 
sin?  Not  at  all.  "Thus  it  behooved  Christ  to  suffer 
and  to  rise  that  repentance  and  remission  of  sins  should 
be  preached  in  his  name  among  all  nations"  ;  not  blood 
and  remission  of  sins.  He  knew  that  tlie  suffering  of  no 
other  being  than  the  transgressor  himself  can  at  all  vin- 
dicate the  honor  of  the  law  which  he  has  broken.  The 
transgressor's  own  suffering  must,  as  far  as  it  can,  restore 
the  honor  of  the  law  which  he  breaks.  And  this  it  does, 
so  far  as  it  does,  by  showing  that  the  lawgiver  was  right 
and  just  in  the  law.  Incomparably  the  best  and  truest 
reparation  that  a  transgressor  can  make  for  his  trans- 
gression is  repentance  and  return  to  obedience.  Nothing 
honors  a  broken  law  like  ceasing  to  break  it. 

The  baptism  of  repentance  for  remission  of  sins. 

We  drone  out  the  words  in  meaningless  monotones. 
We  have  lived  in  their  light  so  long  that  we  heed  it  no 
more  than  the  sunshine.  We  hold  it  by  inheritance,  and 
are  hardly  aware  that  the  world  has  not  always  held  it. 
But  its  dawn  was  the  herald  of  a  wonderful  day,  a  new 
departure,  a  radical  reformation.  To  the  human  race  it 
was  a  glorious  deliverance  !  Christ  was  indeed  the  pas- 
chal lamb  in  this  :  that  whereas  the  paschal  lamb  me- 
morialized the  great  emancipation  of  the  Jews  from  the 


NEW  TESTAMENT  SOLVENT.  14,7 

long  bondage  in  Egypt,  Christ  wrought  the  emancipation 
of  the  human  race  from  beastly  worship  to  spiritual  wor- 
ship !  The  whole  earth  was  sodden  with  innocent  blood. 
All  the  skies  were  darkened  with  the  smoke  of  burning 
sacrifice  in  expiation  for  sin.  Christ  came,  the  Son  of 
God.  The  lurid  light  of  blood-sacrifices  went  down  for- 
ever. The  sun  of  righteousness  shone  in  the  clear  heaven, 
with  what  healing  in  his  wings  !  The  murky  mists,  the 
somber  shadows,  rolled  away.  The  polluted  earth  was 
purified,  and  men  learned  once  for  all  the  good  tidings 
of  great  joy  that  there  is  no  other  atonement,  and  no 
other  expiation,  and  no  other  baptism  given  under  heaven 
among  men  than  the  baptism  of  eepentance  for  the  re- 
mission of  sins. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    ELECTIOIT    OF    PAUL   AND    THE    ELECTION"    OF    PRES- 
BYTERY. 

A  mother,  restless  under  the  first  sharp  anguish  of  an  inconceiv- 
dble  loss,  welcomed  the  distraction  of  listening  to  the  following  essay 
while  it  was  yet  in  the  undress  of  first  composition.  Her  daughter y 
a  young  wife  and  mother,  of  the  Catholic  communion,  begged  also  to 
listen,  and  manifested  the  deepest  interest  in  the  theme  as  well  as 
intelligent  acquaintance  with  the  subject.  For  further  study,  she 
avowed  her  purpose  of  attending  the  Bible  class,  though  aware  that 
it  might  run  athwart  some  of  the  teachings  which  she  accepted. 
But  hers  was  a  mind  which  rejected  arbitrary  limitations  and  ever 
pushed  out  boldly  in  all  directions. 

She  rose  from  the  reading  to  go  out  into  this  fair  world  for  the 
last  time.  With  her  two  little  boys  and  her  young  sister  she  drove 
to  the  house  of  a  friend  whose  ivork  had  lain  among  the  Indians  in 
the  far-off  Cherokee  land.  Returned  home,  some  hidden  force  of  dis- 
ease, that  had  been  lurking  in  wait,  seized  her  ivith  sudden  sway, 
laid  her  unconscious  in  her  fathers  arms,  shut  her  soul  in  even  from 
her  husband's  voice,  till  in  the  end  of  the  Sabbath,  as  it  began  to 
daum  ioivard  the  first  day  of  the  week,  the  arms  that  u'ould  have  held 
her,  the  love  that  never  failed  her,  ivere  constrained  to  give  her  up  to 
death. 

"  And  we  smile  to  think  God^s  greatness  flows  around  our  incompleteness. 
Round  our  restlessness,  his  rest.'''' 

From  the  opposite  extremes  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  from  the 
Presbyterian  female  missionary  ivho  received  her  last  visit  on  earth, 
and  from  the  Roman  Catholic  archbishop,  who  was  her  confessor 
and  friend,  I  pay  a  tribute  to  the  most  shrinking  and  self-mistrustfid 
of  God's  creatures ; — showing  that  in  Jesus  Christ  neither  Protest- 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND  OF  PRESBYTERY.   I49 

anUsm  availeth  anything,  nor  Catholicism,  hut  faith  ivhich  worketh 
by  love. 

To  her  husband  wrote  the  archbishop : 

"  I  beg  to  offer  my  sincerest  sympathy  on  the  loss  of  your  devoted 
wife.  The  most  substantial  consolation  I  can  offer  yoxL  arises  from 
the  memory  of  her  many  virtues  and  deep  religious  feeling  and  per- 
sonal piety.  She  alivays  struck  me  as  a  remarkable  woman,  cast  in 
a  higher  mold  than  the  generality  of  her  sex,  and  therefore  m  some 
sense  peculiar,  but  always  boldly  honest  and  intense.  I  shall  not 
forget  her  in  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  and  I  shall  ask  that  God  may  give 
you  fortitude  to  bear  the  heavy  cross.^' 

And  soothingly,  like  a  comforting  voice  from  the  grave,  came  these 
dear  ivords  from  the  gentle  missiotiary,  telling  us  of  that  last  precious 
hotir  ivhose  story,  but  for  this  kind  thoughtfuhiess,  we  should  not 
have  known — whose  story  is  full  of  peace : 

"  /  can  not  realize  that  the  modest,  unselfish  life  is  ended,  that 
the  heart,  so  filled  ivith  love  for  her  dear  ones,  so  kind  to  every  one, 
has  ceased  to  heat.  To  me  this  comes  as  a  great  personal  loss.  I  was 
for  some  days  her  guest  at  Fort  Gibson,  and  had  I  been  a  princess 
of  the  blood  royal  instead  of  a  poor  missionary  teacher,  she  could 
not  have  shown  me  more  exquisite  hospitality. 

"  We  had  many  conversations  upo?i  religious  subjects,  and,  dif- 
fering as  we  did  in  outward  profession,  we  were  of  the  same  faith. 
Last  Tuesday,  when  she  came  in  to  see  7ne,  much  of  our  conversation 
ivas  upon  religious  topics,  starting  from  her  telling  me  of  the  paper 
you  had  been  writing  upon  revision  of  the  creed,  and  which  she  was 
greatly  interested  in.  Incidentally  came  the  question  of  death,  and 
she  expressed  her  fearlessness  of  it,  and  showed  by  her  words  a  sin- 
cere, child-like  faith  ivhich  it  will  always  be  very  sweet  to  me  to  re- 
member. 

"  /  wish  I  could  put  in  ivords  the  impression  her  life  has  made 
upon  me.  It  seemed  in  my  brief  knowledge  of  it  so  selfless  a  life. 
She  seemed  never  to  think  of  herself — always  of  others. 

"  During  the  days  of  her  illness  I  prayed  earnestly  that  she 
might  be  spared.  Noiv  I  can  only  pray  that  the  Divine  Comforter 
may  he  very  present  in  your  grief-stricken  household.  She  is  '  with 
Christ,  which  is  far  better.*  " 

To  the  dead  in  Christ  in  whom  is  Ufe — to 

ALICE  STANWOOD  BLAINE  COPPINGER 
I  dedicate  this  last  essay  which  held  her  unclouded  attention. 


250  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

The  doctrine  of  election  as  taught  by  St.  Paul  and 
the  doctrine  of  election  as  taught  by  the  Presbyterian 
standards  and  the  Congregational  creeds  are  as  wide 
apart  as  the  poles— exactly  as  wide  apart  as  the  electric 
poles  of  thought.  The  election  of  Paul  is  the  negative  of 
Judaism,  a  liberal  moyement,  a  new  departure,  the  broad- 
ening of  a  stubborn  sectarianism  of  birth  into  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God.  The  election 
of  Presbytery  is  at  present  the  positive  of  misconception ; 
not  so  much  a  standstill  as  a  retrogression  from  Paul,  the 
narrowing  of  Godhood  to  sects  and  creeds. 

It  is  held  in  Congregational  and  Presbyterian  churches 
that  salvation  is  effected  by  an  election  and  an  immediate 
interposition  of  God.  God  chooses  some  from  the  mass 
of  the  lost,  on  whom  he  exercises  a  special  power. 

"  The  rest  of  mankind  [i.  e.,  the  non-elect]  God  was 
pleased,  according  to  the  unsearchable  counsel  of  his  own 
will,  whereby  he  extendeth  or  withholdeth  mercy  as  he 
pleaseth,  for  the  glory  of  his  sovereign  power  over  his 
creatures  [prceterire],  to  pass  by,  and  to  ordain  them  to 
dishonor  and  wrath  for  their  sin,  to  the  praise  of  his 
glorious  justice." 

Many  people  are  so  bent  on  rejecting  this  theological 
error  that  they  will  not  investigate  its  history,  or  credit 
its  respectability,  or  honor  its  origin.  We  have  so  iden- 
tified our  creeds  with  Scripture  teaching  that  men  think 
there  is  no  alternative  between  ridiculing  Paul  and  deny- 
ing their  own  reason  ;  consequently  they  ridicule,  or 
at  least  reject,  Paul.  If  this  were  the  alternative  they 
would  not  be  far  wrong.  No  absurdity  can  be  greater 
than  to  require  a  man  to  stand  on  the  ruins  of  his  mind 
in  order  to  accept  a  statement.  "  God  created  man  in 
his  own  image  ;  in  the  image  of  God  created  he  him ; 
male  and  female  created  he  them."  Because  man  is  cre- 
ated in  the  image  of  God,  he  is  able  to  judge  of  God. 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND  OF  PRESBYTERY.        151 

Male  and  female,  God  created  man  to  judge  of  God. 
Nay,  he  entreats  men  to  judge  :  *^  Come,  now,  and  let  us 
reason  together,  saith  the  Lord."  Nay,  he  commands 
men  to  judge  :  "  Why,  out  of  your  own  selves,  do  ye  not 
judge  what  is  right  ?"  is  a  question  which  rhetoric  char- 
acterizes as  the  most  intense  form  of  affirmation.  Under 
this  divine  command  and  divine  likeness  a  first  principle 
of  the  Christian  consciousness  is  that  "  nothing  can  be 
good  in  him  which  evil  is  in  me." 

Dr.  Vincent,  of  the  Union  Seminary,  in  the  Presby- 
terian Assembly  recognizes  the  situation  and  plants  him- 
self upon  his  manhood  :  "As  a  teacher  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment Scriptures  in  one  of  the  Church's  theological  schools, 
I  am  not  content  that  God  by  the  arbitrary  decree  of  his 
own  will  should  condemn  me  to  eternal  torment  in  hell. 
Paul  tells  me  I  have  no  right  to  reply ;  I  am  only  a  lump 
of  clay  in  the  potter's  hands,  and  he  has  a  right  to  make 
of  me  a  vessel  for  base  uses  if  he  so  choose.  I  deny  it.  I 
say  I  am  not  a  lump  of  clay,  but  a  man  made  in  God's 
image.  This  word  of  Paul's  is  not  the  last  word.  If  it 
were,  it  would  be,  as  some  one  has  truthfully  said,  at 
once  a  satire  of  reason  upon  herself  and  the  suicide  of 
revelation." 

The  first  point  in  any  argument  is  to  know  what  the 
man  said  ;  next,  to  know  what  he  meant. 

The  Presbyterian  conventions  have  been  arguing  fully, 
freely,  splendidly,  the  allied  questions  of  election,  repro- 
bation, God's  sovereignty  ;  but  if  this  is  the  best  they  can 
do  for  Paul,  Paul  has  fared  rather  hardly  at  their  hands. 

I  stand  by  Paul !  The  strong  argument  alleged  in  and 
out  of  convention  to  show  that  God  may  doom  men,  of 
his  own  good  pleasure,  to  everlasting  death,  is  drawn 
from  the  ninth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and 
the  declaration  is  confidently  made  that  in  this  chapter 
the  doctrine  of  reprobation  is  more  strongly  stated  than 


1^2  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

it  is  in  the  Presbyterian  Confession.  Would  it  not  be 
wise,  it  is  asked,  to  see  first  if  men  can  revise  this  doc- 
trine out  of  the  Scripture  before  we  attempt  to  revise  it 
out  of  the  Confession  ? 

It  is  a  fair  proposal ;  but  the  doctrine  is  not  in 
Scripture. 

*^  As  it  is  written,  Jacob  have  I  loved,  but  Esau  have 
I  hated." 

"  He  saith  to  Moses,  I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I 
will  have  mercy,  and  I  will  have  compassion  on  whom  I 
will  have  compassion." 

"  Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that  formed  it. 
Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  Hath  not  the  potter 
power  over  the  clay,  of  the  same  lump  to  make  one  ves- 
sel unto  honor,  and  another  unto  dishonor  ?  " 

The  old-school  Presbyterian  reads  this  and  confesses 
that  it  is  tough,  but  closes  his  teeth  hard  and  resolves 
loyally  and  bravely  to  stand  by  it  as  the  very  word  of 
God.  The  radical  scoffs  at  it  as  absurd  and  tramples  it 
under  foot,  and  even  the  moderate,  like  Dr.  Vincent, 
thinks  that  Paul  is  a  little  out ! 

It  is  neither  absurd  nor  tough,  and  Paul  is  wholly  in. 
It  is  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God ;  and, 
still  more,  it  is  the  love  of  God  unto  salvation  ;  as  it 
was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world 
without  end.     Amen. 

For,  in  these  assertions,  Paul  was  not  preaching  the 
doctrine  of  reprobation  ;  he  was  preaching  against  it. 
Theologically  it  was  not  in  his  mind.  Future  destiny 
was  not  what  he  was  talking  about.  What  was  in  his 
mind  was  the  widening  of  God's  love  to  all  the  world, 
against  narrowing  it  to  the  Jewish  nation,  as  the  Jews 
claimed  it  should  be  narrowed. 

Let  us  go  back  to  the  day  of  Paul.  The  Jews  around 
him  believed  in  hereditary  salvation  for  the  seed  of  Abra- 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND   OF  PRESBYTERY.        153 

ham.  They  believed  themselves  the  one  nation,  beloved 
of  God.  They  had  indeed  been  chosen  of  God  for  a  par- 
ticular purpose.  This  we  need  not  learn  from  any  mirac- 
ulous divine  utterance.  We  trace  it  backward  in  the 
world's  history,  the  Bible  confirming  it.  That  purpose 
was,  if  not  the  discovery,  at  least  the  preservation  and 
promulgation  to  the  human  race  of  the  idea  that  God  is 
one  and  that  God  is  righteous.  The  Jews  held  this  idea 
clear  and  close,  while  other  nations  were  only  groping 
toward  it.  Under  the  domination  of  this  idea  the  Jews 
inferred  that  they  were  therefore  the  pet  people  of  God. 
They  inferred  that  God  had  given  them  this  great  mis- 
sion, not  because  he  had  given  them  certain  traits  which 
best  adapted  them  to  transact  it  successfully,  but  because 
he  loved  them  more  than  any  other  nation.  They  were 
his  exclusive  favorites.  Naturally  they  therefore  consid- 
ered themselves  as  better  than  any  other  nation.  To  be 
a  Jew  was  to  be  a  pious  man,  a  religious  man.  They 
looked  down  upon  all  other  peoples  as  barbarians.  The 
Jews  were  superior  and  sacred,  elect  and  select  of  Heaven, 
not  to  do  a  certain  work  for  the  world,  but  to  receive 
favor  from  Heaven  as  descendants  of  Abraham.  There 
was  no  salvation  outside  of  Jewry. 

Thus  the  Jews  believed  profoundly  in  reprobation — in 
the  reprobation  of  everybody  but  themselves.  Against 
this  idea  Paul  threw  himself  with  all  the  fervor  of  his 
logic. 

Paul  went  on  a  new  crusade.  It  was  the  great  era 
of  theological  history.  This  narrow  rivulet  of  life  had 
flowed  down  through  two  thousand  years,  diverging  into 
slender  currents  and  upspringing  in  living  fountains  un- 
der the  inspiration  of  poet  and  prophet,  the  Davids,  the 
Isaiahs,  the  Micahs,  but  now  at  last  in  Christ  broadening 
out  into  a  mighty  river,  whose  waters  should  wash  the 
shores  of  the  wide  world  forevermore.     It  was  a  thorough 


154  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

reyersal  of  the  whole  Jewish  polity.  It  was  an  upheaval 
of  the  whole  idea  of  Jewish  dignity.  It  was  taking  from 
the  Jews  the  M?igdom  of  heaven,  breaking  it  up  into  a 
republic,  and  making  them  but  a  single  and  equal  state 
with  others  in  that  republic.  Ah'eady  subjugated  by  the 
Eoman  Empire,  it  was  wasting  away  their  last  hope  of 
aristocracy  and  authority  and  the  resumption  of  ancient 
splendor,  and  dooming  them  to  the  perpetual  territorial 
inferiority  which  their  weakness  threatened,  but  from 
which  they  ever  hoped  to  be  redeemed  in  some  supernat- 
ural way  by  their  peculiar  favoritism  and  friendship  with 
God.  So  little  did  they  understand  what  they  had  been 
chosen  for ! 

Paul  was  the  leader  of  this  movement,  this  leveling, 
democratic,  politico-theological  movement.  It  was  his 
special  business,  his  sphere,  his  mission.  He  called  him- 
self the  Apostle  to  tlie  Gentiles,  and  he  magnified  his 
office.  He  was  not  appointed  with  the  original  twelve. 
He  had  a  separate  ordination  and  installation,  but  he 
claimed  as  divine  a  sanction  as  that  of  the  original 
twelve.  He  pressed  urgently  the  claim  of  bis  clients,  the 
Gentiles,  to  be  as  much  and  as  justly  the  children  of 
God  as  were  the  Jews,  yet  always  defended  himself  against 
charges  of  disloyalty  to  his  own  nation.  He  did  not  so 
much  ask  as  demand  recognition  of  his  rights  and  of 
the  rights  of  his  Gentiles  :  '^Be  it  known  therefore  unto 
you  that  the  salvation  of  God  is  sent  unto  the  Gentiles ! " 
It  was  not  a  prayer  for  privilege,  but  a  proclamation  of 
equal  rights. 

Undoubtedly  learning  has  changed,  and  learning  will 
continue  to  change,  our  translation  ;  but,  just  as  it  stands, 
the  argument  is  not  only  clear,  but  luminous,  and  per- 
fectly easy  to  trace.  The  Jews  were  elected  of  God,  Paul 
admits,  but,  in  the  first  place,  not  all  Israel.  Not  all  the 
children  of  Abraham  were  the  children  of  God,  even  in 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND   OF  PRESBYTERY.        155 

the  narrow  Jewish  sense,  but  only  the  children  of  Isaac  ; 
Ishmacl's  descendants  were  not  included  in  the  covenant; 
— not  all  the  children  of  Isaac  even — for  ^'^  Jacob  have  I 
loved,  but  Esau  have  I  hated."  What,  then,  becomes  of 
the  Jewish  claim  that  they  were  elect  '^  because  we  have 
Abraham  to  our  father  ?  "  Ishmael  and  Isaac,  Jacob  and 
Esau,  were  equally  children  of  Abraham.  If  there  were 
any  force  in  this  Jewish  claim  of  exclusive  and  hereditary 
righteousness,  both  would  alike  have  been  "elected," 
"loved";  whereas  all  Jews  recognized  that  Jacob  had 
been  elected  and  Esau  reprobated.  Elected  to  what  ? 
Heaven  ?  No.  Elected  to  be  a  peculiar  people,  to  re- 
ceive, to  cherish,  to  transmit  to  their  posterity,  and  thence 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  the  idea  of  one  God,  a  God  of 
righteousness ;  the  idea  of  a  Eedeemer,  who  should  save 
his  people  from  their  sins.  Eeprobated  to  what  ?  Hell  ? 
No.  Eeprobated  from  this  special  service — left  to  be 
merged  in  the  surrounding  nations,  lost  to  history  as 
most  nations  and  tribes  and  small  peoples  of  the  East 
were  lost,  in  regard  to  their  individual  and  tribal  exist- 
ence. Any  other  kind  of  love  for  Jacob  or  for  his  de- 
scendants God  has  no  more  displayed  than  for  Esau.  He 
was  continually  chiding  them,  punishing  them.  Hatred, 
vengeance,  might  seem  rather  to  characterize  the  elec- 
tion, the  selection,  which  created  the  nation  in  slavery, 
continued  them  in  repeated  captivities,  and,  since  Christ, 
has  kept  the  Jews  ever  in  the  fore-front  of  history  for 
homelessness,  for  the  bitterest  persecution,  for  unmerited 
reproach,  till  the  wraith  of  the  Wandering  Jew  is  but  an 
epitome  of  this  nation  without  a  country,  while  the  name 
and  the  heritage  of  Esau  have  found  the  sweet,  safe 
shelter  of  obscurity. 

So  far  as  we  knov/  their  story,  the  children  of  Esau 
seem  to  have  been  as  prosperous,  as  favored  of  God  in 
basket  and  store  and  lore,  as  were  the  sons  of  Jacob,  for 


156  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Esau  took  away  with  him  all  the  persons  of  his  house,  and 
his  cattle,  and  all  his  beasts,  and  all  his  substance,  and 
went  into  the  country  from  the  face  of  his  brother  Jacob, 
because  their  riches  were  more  than  that  they  might  dwell 
together,  and  the  land  could  not  bear  them  because  of 
their  cattle.  When  Esau  went  up  to  meet  his  brother 
coming  home  to  Canaan,  he  was  attended  by  a  retinue  of 
four  hundred  men.  In  the  long  genealogies  Esau  could 
boast  as  many  dukes  as  Jacob  ;  and  it  was  the  descendant 
of  one  of  these,  Duke  Teman,  who  sat  down  in  the  ashes 
with  Job  seven  days  and  seven  nights  without  speaking, 
and  then  spoke,  because  he  could  not  help  it,  such  words 
of  wisdom  and  piety  and  culture  as  show  him  to  have 
been  a  man  of  parts,  of  thought  and  education.  Job 
found  him  a  miserable  comforter ;  but  the  Church  honors 
him  to-day  and  barbs  her  arrow  to  the  sinner,  and  sweet- 
ens her  consolations  to  the  saint,  and  pierces  the  fallacy 
of  the  sophist  with  extracts  from  the  common  sense  of 
Eliphaz  the  Temanite,  one  of  the  three  friends  of  the 
fallen  Eastern  magnate — Eliphaz  the  Temanite,  a  lineal 
descendant  and  ever  so  great  grandson  of  Esau.  Cer- 
tainly there  is  no  hate,  only  history  to  be  seen  in  the 
dealings  of  Providence  with  the  houses  of  both  Jacob 
and  Esau. 

If  we  look  back  to  the  personal  biography  of  Jacob 
and  Esau,  out  of  which  both  Paul  and  Malachi  took 
their  illustration,  what  do  we  find  ?  God  is  not  so  much 
as  mentioned  in  the  business  of  Jacob's  election.  Esau 
was  the  elder,  a  man  of  action,  of  impulse,  of  impa- 
tience, a  man  of  sj)ort,  a  man  of  the  stirring,  outside 
world.  Jacob  was  the  younger,  a  man  of  reflection, 
calculation.  Jacob  took  advantage  of  Esau's  hunger, 
impetuosity,  impatience,  and  bought  for  next  to  nothing 
the  birthright  which  Esau  in  the  famine  of  the  moment 
foolishly  undervalued.      The  bargain  which  Jacob  con- 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND   OF  PRESBYTERY.        157 

ceived  in  selfishness  lie  confirmed  with  fraud  and  hjrpo- 
critical  assumption  of  piety ;  but,  good  or  bad,  weak  or 
strong,  the  act  by  which  Esau  lost  his  birthright  was 
Esau's  act,  not  God's.  He  lost  it,  not  because  God  loved 
Jacob  and  hated  Esau,  but  because,  in  one  hungry, 
thoughtless  moment,  he  insanely  sold  it  for  a  mess  of 
jDottage.  God  did  not  arbitrarily,  absolutely,  of  his  mere 
good  pleasure,  from  all  eternity,  without  reason  or  re- 
course, "elect"  Jacob  to  salvation.  He  did  but  respect 
Esau's  own  *^  election"  of  Jacob  to  the  eldest  son's  place. 
God  "elected  "  Jacob  to  the  primacy  exactly  as  he  elected 
Washington  to  the  presidency — by  ordinary  human  meth- 
ods, and  by  no  other.  There  is  no  sign  of  any  miracu- 
lous interposition  of  God  between  Esau  and  Jacob,  any 
love  of  God  greater  toward  Jacob  than  toward  Esau,  nor 
is  there  any  question  of  heaven  or  of  soul's  salvation.  It 
was  all  about  a  matter  of  inheriting  estate.  It  was  mere- 
ly a  question  of  primogeniture  and  entail  and  illustrious 
history ;  and  as  such  it  was  used  by  Paul  to  elucidate  a 
question  of  larger  sense  and  wider  sweep — the  question 
whether  God  was  the  father  of  the  Jew  alone,  or  the 
father  of  the  Gentile  also.  The  words  love  and  hate  are 
but  a  terse  and  intense  expression  of  the  value  set  by  the 
Jews  upon  their  position  in  the  world,  compared  with 
that  of  kindred  yet  separate  nations.  The  question  is 
introduced  to  show  that  as  the  favored  nation  and  the 
despised  nation  were  both  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  Jew- 
ish aristocracy  of  blood  counts  for  nothing. 

Having  established  the  fact  that  salvation  is  not  of 
hereditary  transmission,  because  some  of  the  children  of 
Abraham  were  selected  and  some  were  excluded,  Paul 
continues  to  argue  that  God  was  right  in  this  selection, 
election  of  some  Jews  and  exclusion  of  others,  and  inclu- 
sion of  the  Gentiles.  "What  shall  we  say,  then  ?  Is 
there  unrighteousness  with  God  ?     God  forbid."     God 


158  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

was  not  bound  by  moral  obligation  to  stand  by  the  Jews 
alone  and  abandon  the  rest  of  the  world.  He  had  unde- 
niable right  to  save  the  Gentiles  also.  God  was  confined 
by  no  heredity.  God  recognized  no  heredity.  He  is  a 
Jew  which  is  one  '*  inwardl}^,"  a  worshiper  of  the  one 
righteous  God.  The  only  Judaism  God  respects  is  Juda- 
ism of  character,  not  of  blood.  The  really  important 
feature  of  Judaism  is  its  teaching  the  unity  and  righteous- 
ness of  God,  and  demanding  righteousness  of  man.  If 
the  Gentiles,  without  the  Jewish  law,  have  attained  to 
righteousness,  and  if  Israel,  following  that  law,  hath  not 
attained  to  the  law  of  righteousness,  shall  not  God  make 
known  the  riches  of  his  glory  on  the  Gentiles  ? 

Dr.  Shedd,  after  setting  forth  his  view  of  the  logic  of 
this  case,  says  : 

'*  But  God  himself  has  decided  the  question.  He  as- 
serts his  sovereign  right  to  optional  decision  in  the  mat- 
ter of  human  salvation.  In  that  wonderful  description 
of  his  being  and  attributes  which  he  gave  to  Moses, 
among  other  declarations  he  says  :  *  I  will  be  gracious  to 
whom  I  will  be  gracious,  and  will  show  mercy  on  whom 
I  will  show  mercy.'  In  this  solemn  pronunciamento 
with  which  he  prefaced  the  whole  work  of  human  salva- 
tion he  distinctly  declares  that  he  is  under  no  obliga- 
tions to  redeem  sinful  men,  but  whatever  he  does  in  the 
premises  is  of  his  own  unobliged,  free,  and  sovereign 
mercy  and  decision.  God  incarnate  teaches  the  same 
truth  in  the  Gospels.  And  St.  Paul  recites  the  words  of 
God  to  Moses — 'I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have 
mercy,  and  I  will  have  compassion  on  whom  I  will  have 
compassion ' — as  a  conclusive  and  unanswerable  demon- 
stration of  the  divine  sovereignty  in  salvation." 

Did  God  preface  the  whole  work  of  salvation  with 
this  pronunciamento — the  whole  work  ?  According  to 
received  chronology,  the  world  had  already  been  going  on 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND   OF  PRESBYTERY.        159 

more  than  twenty-five  hundred  years.  Was  God  all  this 
time  doing  nothing  for  the  creatures  he  had  made  ?  Abel 
and  Enoch  and  Melchizedek,  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Ja- 
cob, the  four  hundred  years  of  slavery  in  Egypt,  the  pass- 
over,  and  all  the  pain  and  peril  and  glory  of  the  eman- 
cipation— was  God  not  in  all  this  ?  Was  God  doing 
nothing  for  his  world  ? 

Dr.  Shedd  reads  in  this  solemn  pronunciamento  a 
declaration  of  God  that  he  is  not  under  obligation  to  re- 
deem sinful  men.  I  do  not  so  read  Moses.  Paul  did 
not  so  read  Moses.  I  accept  Paul's  rendering  and  I  re- 
ject Dr.  Shedd's.  I  read  with  Paul  in  this  solemn  pro- 
nunciamento God's  distinct  declaration  that  he  is  under 
no  obligation  7iot  to  redeem  sinful  men. 

God  is  sovereign  of  the  whole  world.  He  will  have 
mercy  on  whom  he  will  have  mercy.  Gentile  as  well  as 
Jew.  Is  God  to  be  restrained  from  showing  mercy  to 
one  man  because  another  man  claims  all  God's  mercy  ? 
Whom  he  will  he  hardeneth,  Jew  or  Gentile,  Esau  or 
Pharaoh.  The  stress  is  not  on  the  process  of  hardening, 
but  on  the  persons  hardened  ;  not  on  the  act  of  showing 
mercy,  but  on  the  object  of  rnercy.  Paul's  point  is  to 
show  God's  impartiality  as  against  the  Jewish  claim  of 
partiality  to  them. 

It  would  be  easy  if  it  were  pertinent  to  point  out  that 
God  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart  exactly  as  he  "  reprobated" 
Esau,  by  the  processes  of  human  experience.  If  we 
study  the  history  of  the  transaction,  we  find  that  God 
hardened  Pharaoh's  heart  through  the  natural  laws  by 
which  despotism,  greed,  self-indulgence,  falseness,  bro- 
ken pledges  blind  the  eyes  to  wisdom  and  righteous- 
ness, whether  the  eyes  be  those  of  the  tyrant  of  Egypt 
or  the  Grand  Monarch  of  France.  Indulgence  in  sin 
dulls  the  sensitiveness  of  the  soul  to  sin.  This  is  not 
simply  the  revealed  truth  of  the  Bible ;  it  is  the  com- 


IQQ  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

mon  truism  of  the  newspapers.  We  live  under  a  social 
order,  not  established  by  any  man,  in  which  continued 
indulgence  in  sin,  whether  it  be  selfishness,  or  robbery, 
or  murder,  dulls  in  the  soul  the  sense  of  guilt,  hardens 
the  heart.  No  one  says  it  shall  be  so.  Every  one  says 
it  is  so.  You  may  state  it  thus  :  According  to  the  law 
of  man's  nature,  Pharaoh's  heart  was  hardened  by  indul- 
gence in  oppression  and  rapacity.  Put  it  thus,  if  it  please 
you  best.  He  means  the  same  thing  who  says  God,  be- 
cause law  is  but  the  mode  of  God's  action,  and  this  is  a 
beneficent  law — a  law  that  worketh  righteousness.  Paul's 
point  is  that  Jew  and  Gentile  are  under  the  same  natural 
law,  alike  hardened  by  indulgence  in  sin,  alike  welcome 
to  God  in  repentance  of  sin. 

"  Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that  formed  it. 
Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  " 

Yes,  if  he  that  formed  the  thing  blamed  it  and  pun- 
ished it  for  being  thus  formed.  "  Hath  not  the  potter 
power  over  the  clay,  of  the  same  lump  to  make  one  ves- 
sel unto  honor  and  another  unto  dishonor  ?  "  Certainly ; 
but  he  has  no  right  to  blame  and  punish  the  vessel  he  has 
made  to  dishonor  for  not  being  honorable.  He  has  no 
right  to  blame  and  punish  the  earthen  pudding-pan  for 
not  being  a  peach-blow  vase.  Presbyterians  and  Congre- 
gationalists  have  said  that  he  has  this  right,  but  Paul 
never. 

This  meaning  has  been  put  into  Paul's  words  by  the- 
ology, but  Paul  never  put  it  there.  Paul,  indeed,  does 
not  so  much  argue  as  assert  God's  sovereignty,  but  the 
examples  he  cites  are  not  of  arbitrary  acts  of  God,  but  of 
God's  acting  through  man's  own  free  will  and  choice. 
Esau  and  Pharaoh  were  not  outwardly,  mechanically 
constrained  to  plunder  and  waste.  They  did  exactly  as 
they  chose.  Paul  does  not  dwell  on  this  point  because  it 
is  not  the  point  to  which  he  speaks,  but  it  is  involved  in 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND   OF  PRESBYTERY.        161 

his  words  and  implied  in  his  argument.  The  clay  in  his 
hands  is  not  the  Presbyterian  clay,  out  of  which  God  has  a 
right  by  eternal  decree  of  his  mere  good  pleasure  to  make 
one  man  who  shall  go  to  heaven,  and  another  man  who 
shall  be  doomed  to  hell  forever.  Paul's  clay  is  the  clay 
out  of  which  Jew  and  Gentile  are  alike  made.  The  Great 
Potter  has  a  right  to  make  of  this  clay  vessels  of  honor 
— Jews — and  vessels  of  dishonor — Gentiles — but  he  has 
also  an  equal  right  to  make  the  Gentiles  vessels  of  honor. 
Nay,  what  if  some  of  these  Jewish  vessels  of  honor,  de- 
spising their  beauty  and  sacred  purpose,  should  mar  and 
crack  and  despoil  themselves,  and  become  vessels  of 
wrath,  and  the  potter  should  pour  the  riches  of  his  in- 
vention upon  what  the  Jews  consider  the  vessels  of  dis- 
honor, *'  Even  us  whom  he  hath  called,  not  of  the  Jews 
only,  but  also  of  the  Gentiles  ?  "  It  would  be  only  what 
the  Jewish  scriptures  had  themselves  declared — that  they 
who  were  not  considered  the  Lord's  people,  should  come 
to  be  called  the  children  of  the  living  God.  It  was  only 
what  the  prophets  foretold  :  '*  In  thee  shall  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  be  blessed."  The  Jewish  vase  has  no  right 
to  say  to  the  Gentile  vase,  "What  business  have  you  to 
be  a  vase  ?  Only  the  Jew  shall  be  a  vase.  Let  the  Gen- 
tiles remain  always  pots  !" 

The  illustration  of  the  potter's  clay  was  a  favorite 
one  among  the  Jews,  but  they  never  maltreated  it  as  we 
have  done.  They  never  molded  it  into  the  image  of  an 
arbitrary,  self-willed,  irresponsible,  unjust,  omnipotent, 
spoiled  child,  and  called  it  God — a  worse  idol  than  any 
god  of  wood  or  stone. 

"The  word  which  came  to  Jeremiah  from  the  Lord, 
saying  : 

"  Arise,  and  go  down  to  the  potter's  house,  and  there 
I  will  cause  thee  to  hear  my  words.  Then  I  went  down 
to  the  potter's  house,  and,  behold,  he  wrought  a  work  on 
11 


162  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

the  wheels.  And  the  yessel  that  he  made  of  clay  was 
marred  in  the  hand  of  the  potter  :  so  he  made  it  again 
another  yessel,  as  seemed  good  to  the  potter  to  make  it, 

"  Then  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  me,  saying  : 

*'  0  house  of  Israel,  can  not  I  do  with  you  as  this 
potter  ?  saith  the  Lord.  Behold,  as  the  clay  is  in  the 
potter's  hand,  so  are  ye  in  my  hand,  0  house  of  Israel. 
At  what  instant  I  shall  speak  concerning  a  nation,  and 
concerning  a  kingdom,  to  pluck  up,  and  to  pull  down, 
and  to  destroy  it ;  if  that  nation,  against  whom  I  have 
pronounced,  turn  from  their  evil,  I  will  repent  of  the 
evil  that  I  thought  to  do  unto  them.  And  at  what  in- 
stant I  speak  concerning  a  nation,  and  concerning  a 
kingdom,  to  build  and  to  plant  it ;  if  it  do  evil  in  my 
sight,  that  it  obey  not  my  voice,  then  I  will  repent  of 
the  good,  wherewith  I  said  I  would  benefit  them." 

This  is  divine  sovereignty,  but  it  is  a  reasonable  sov- 
ereignty, founded  on  justice,  on  immutable  right,  tem- 
pered by  mercy,  and  watched  by  love.  It  is  a  declaration 
of  God's  sovereignty  accompanied  by  a  distinct  appeal  to 
man's  sense  of  right  and  wrong  desert.  We  try  to  hide 
our  false  logic  behind  '^the  unsearchable  counsel  of  his 
own  will,  whereby  he  extendeth  or  withholdeth  mercy  as 
he  pleaseth."  But  God  does  not  attempt  to  hide  behind 
his  own  willfulness.  God,  with  the  utmost  frankness, 
appeals  to  our  reason  :  I  am  all-powerful,  and  all  my 
power  I  exert  to  repress  evil  and  to  cherish  good  within 
the  limit  of  your  free  choice. 

The  Westminster  divines  say  that  God,  for  the  mani- 
festation of  his  glory,  has  predestinated  some  men  to 
everlasting  death,  and  that  they  are  particularly  and  un- 
changeably designed,  and  their  number  is  so  certain  and 
definite  that  it  can  not  be  increased  or  diminished  (Con- 
fession of  Faith,  chap,  iii,  sees.  3,  4).  But  God  himself, 
through  Ezekiel,  says:  ^^When  I  say  unto  the  wicked. 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND  OF  PRESBYTERY.        163 

tilou  shalt  surely  die,  if  he  turn  from  his  sin  and  do  that 
which  is  hiwful  and  right,  ...  he  shall  surely  liye,  he 
shall  not  die." 

"  Woe  unto  him  that  striyeth  with  his  maker  !  Let 
the  potsherd  strive  with  the  potsherds  of  the  earth. 
Shall  the  clay  say  to  him  that  fashioneth  it,  What 
makest  thou  ?  or  thy  work,  He  hath  no  hands  ?" 

That,  too,  is  divine  sovereignty,  but  it  is  utterly 
reasonable.  God,  whether  we  call  him  God  or  Nature, 
is  so  great,  so  powerful,  that  it  is  as  useless  to  deny 
or  decry  natural  laws,  whether  material  or  moral,  as  it 
would  be  for  the  clay  to  decry  the  potter,  God.  Na- 
ture has  created  mau,  body  and  souk  We  do  not  know 
whether  the  body  is  the  prison  of  the  spirit,  or  the  serv- 
ant of  the  spirit ;  wliether  the  soul  is  evolved  from  the 
body,  or  the  body  from  the  soul.  The  question  of  im- 
mortality, the  question  of  moral  responsibility,  is  not  at 
stake  in  either.  One  man  is  made  with  the  power  to 
turn  everything  he  touches  into  gold,  another  into  sen- 
timent. One  man  is  born  with  the  sense  of  form  and 
color,  and  he  makes  himself  an  artist.  One  man  is  born 
with  an  insight  of  invisible  forces  and  possible  combina- 
tions, and  he  becomes  a  great  inventor.  Many  a  time 
must  the  poor  crock  be  tempted  to  say  to  the  Great  Pot- 
ter :  "  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus,  ugly  and  undeco- 
rative — always  on  the  kitchen-shelf  or  in  the  oven's  heat, 
till,  cracked  and  worthless,  I  go  down  into  the  pit,  while 
the  precious  vase,  by  no  will  of  its  own,  stands  always 
with  its  charge  of  lilies  and  roses,  bearing  no  heavier 
burden  than  their  fragrance,  a  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy 
forever  ?  "  I  can  not  answer.  I  do  not  know.  Herein  is 
mystery,  for  the  human  crock  is  as  aware  of  beauty  and 
poetry  and  genius  and  ease  as  is  the  royal  vase.  I  do 
not  know  why  the  Great  Potter — being  great,  being 
omnipotent — did  not  grant  to  all  an  equal  gratification  ; 


164  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

but  if  you  will  concede  another  life  than  this,  if  you 
will  concede  infinite  goodness  with  infinite  power,  I  can 
wait  the  Great  Teacher,  Death,  and  God  adore.  If  you 
impose  upon  me  an  omnipotence  that  has  endowed  me 
with  reason  yet  gives  me  no  reasons,  that  commands  my 
present  judgment,  yet  contradicts  the  principles  he  has 
himself  established,  and  intrenches  himself  behind  his 
own  inscrutability,  a  God  arbitrary,  self-willed,  incon- 
sistent, ordaining  his  creatures  without  their  volition, 
and  then  dooming  them,  or  leaving  them,  to  eternal  suf- 
fering, eternal  hunger  and  thirst  and  disappointment 
and  sin  and  remorse  and  pain — there  is  no  such  God  I 
He  is  the  Frankenstein  monster  of  logic — the  wild  en- 
gine of  a  too  strenuous  theological  system. 

God  is  immeasurable,  and  we  can  not  comprehend 
him ;  but  he  is  entirely  frank  and  intelligible  in  all  tliat 
he  demands  of  us.  He  does  not  require  of  us  a  decision 
which  he  does  not  give  us  the  means  to  make.  He  does 
not  command  a  loyalty  to  what  he  has  made  us  loathe. 
With  absolute  assertions  of  infinite  power,  he  joins  equally 
absolute  assertions  of  infinite  righteousness  : 

"  I  will  go  before  thee,  that  thou  mayest  know  that  I 
the  Lord  am  God  ;  though  thou  hast  not  known  me. 

"I  form  the  light  and  create  darkness. 

''Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Ask  me  of  things.  I  have 
created  man,  but  I  have  raised  him  up  in  righteous- 
ness. 

"I  have  not  spoken  in  secret.  I  declare  things  that 
are  right." 

It  was  the  Egyptians,  the  Ethiopians,  the  Sabeans, 
idol-makers,  who  complained  that  the  Israelites  wor- 
shiped a  God  who  *' hidest  thyself."  ''I  the  Lord 
speak  righteousness  so  clearly  that  every  one  shall  say, 
In  the  Lord  have  I  righteousness  and  strength." 

It  is  the  necessities  of  an  unnecessary  theological  sys- 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAFL  AND  OF  PRESBYTERY.       165 

tem  that  constrain  us  to  these  fiendish  misrepresenta- 
tions. It  is  not  the  love  of  Christ  that  constrains  us. 
Christ  '^came  not  into  the  world  to  condemn  the  world, 
but  that  the  world  through  him  might  be  saved."  Saved 
from  what  ?  From  sin.  Not  from  a  future  hell,  but 
from  present  sin. 

In  the  late  discussions  over  revision  one  of  the  op- 
ponents of  revision  said  :  **  Just  here  lies  a  point  of  great 
peril.  The  Calvinistic  system  is  so  beautifully  and  logic- 
ally connected  in  all  its  parts  that  to  alter  a  statement 
in  one  place  necessitates  a  corresponding  alteration  all 
through  the  system." 

Professor  Stowe  once  remarked  :  **  When  any  theo- 
logical theory  claims  to  be  a  complete  system,  I  know 
without  examination  that  it  is  false."  The  reason  is 
clear  :  In  the  endless  chain  of  divine  work  we  know 
only  that  minute  part  of  it  that  enters  out  of  the  dark- 
ness at  the  beginning  of  earthly  life  and  re-enters  the 
darkness  at  the  close  of  earthly  life.  To  attempt  to  con- 
struct— to  fancy  we  have  constructed — out  of  the  few 
links  presented  by  the  world's  experience,  the  divine 
endless  chain,  the  complete  plan  of  salvation,  the  per- 
fected theological  system — is  an  idle  dream.  If  our 
theology,  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  correct,  it  must  be  imper- 
fect. To  be  true  it  must  be  fragmentary.  If  the  Calvin- 
istic system  is  so  beautifully  and  logically  connected  in 
all  its  parts  that  it  can  not  allow  the  introduction  of  any 
new  light,  any  new  truth,  without  fatal  disturbance  and 
dislocation,  shall  we  wrap  it  in  tissue-paper  and  cotton- 
wool and  lay  it  carefully  out  of  harm's  way  ?  No.  Con- 
demn it  for  structural  weakness  !  Turn  and  overturn 
till  the  truth  shake  not  the  earth  only,  but  also  heaven  ! 
All  upheaval  will  but  serve  to  shake  out  the  error  and 
shake  the  truth  more  firmly  into  place. 

It  is  held  by  many  in  the  Presbytery  that  if  we  do 


IQQ  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

not  let  the  old  error  stand  a  while  longer,  there  will  be 
the  great  calamity  of  division. 

*'An  acceptable  creed  will  be  the  fruit  of  peace,  not 
of  war.  Fanaticism  may  come  out  of  excitement,  but  a 
creed  must  be  the  result  of  prayer  and  quiet  study." 

**This  discussion  is  opening  already  new  lines  of  di- 
vision in  every  church,  and  no  matter  which  party  suc- 
ceeds, there  will  be  an  irritated  and  dissatisfied  minority 
which  will  renew  and  keep  up  the  struggle  in  successive 
assemblies.  This  will  occasion  excitement  and  ill-feeling 
instead  of  peace  and  brotherly  love." 

"The  immediate  eiiect  of  the  overture  and  of  the 
newspaper  discussion  which  it  has  generated  has  been  un- 
settling. Men's  minds  have  been  disturbed  and  the  im- 
pression needlessly  created  that  our  standards  are  seri- 
ously at  fault." 

But  what  of  Christ  ?  Did  he  decline  to  make  a  di- 
vision in  the  church  of  burnt-offering  for  the  remission 
of  sins  ?  On  the  contrary,  he  came  on  purpose  to  make 
a  division.  "I  came  not  to  send  peace  on  earth,  but  a 
sword."  He  preached  instantly  and  everywhere  his  new 
doctrine  of  repentance  for  the  remission  of  sin  till  the 
veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in  twain  ;  of  the  temjole  itself 
was  not  left  one  stone  upon  another,  and  the  church  of 
Jewry — the  perfectly  united  church  of  sacrifice  and  altar 
and  slain  bullocks — was  not  only  divided,  but  dissolved. 

What  of  Paul  ?  To  him  it  was  given  to  drive  in  the 
wedge  constructed  on  Christ's  principles — the  most  di- 
visive wedge  that  ever  threatened  the  integrity  of  an  in- 
stitution. It  was  not  only  theological,  but  political.  It 
laid  open  to  suspicion  not  only  Paul's  orthodoxy,  but  his 
patriotism.  He  defended  both  valiantly — the  one  by 
constant  assertion  that  his  new  departure  was  only  car- 
rying out  the  teachings  of  the  old  prophets,  the  other  by 
constant  iteration  of  his  loyalty  to  his  country. 


ELECTIONS   OF  PAUL  AND  OF  PRESBYTERY.        167 

"I  am  a  man  whicli  am  a  Jew,  born  in  Tarsus,  a  city 
in  Cilicia,  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city,  brought  up  at  the 
feet  of  Gamaliel,  taught  according  to  the  perfect  manner 
of  the  law  of  the  fathers,  as  zealous  toward  God  as  ye  all 
•are  at  this  day.  Circumcised  the  eighth  day,  of  the  stock 
of  Israel,  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  an  Hebrew  of  the  He- 
brews, as  touching  the  la^v  a  Pharisee,  concerning  zeal  per- 
secuting the  church,  touching  the  righteousness  which  is 
in  the  law  blameless."     There  is  orthodoxy  for  you  ! 

And  before  and  after,  and  above  and  around,  and 
through  and  through  Paul's  passionate  protest  that  he 
and  his  Gentiles  shall  not  be  thrust  back  from  the  love 
of  God,  that  they  as  well  as  the  Jews  are  God's  elect, 
justified  in  their  claim  by  God  himself,  come  flashing 
and  fervid  his  equally  passionate  protests  of  patriotism. 
His  claim  of  equal  spiritual  rights  for  foreigners,  he  will 
not  suffer  to  be  construed  into  indifference  to  his  native 
land,  her  traditions,  her  institutions,  her  glory  and  her 
grace : 

I  say  the  truth  in  Christ,  I  lie  not,  my  conscience 
also  bearing  me  witness  in  the  Holy  Ghost  that  I  have 
great  heaviness  and  continual  sorrow  in  my  heart  that 
my  own  people  will  not  accept  the  gospel  of  Christ.  For 
I  could  wish  myself  accursed  from  Christ  for  my  brethren, 
my  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh,  who  are  Israelites, 
and  of  whom,  as  concerning  the  flesh,  Christ  came.  No 
one  supposes  this  to  be  cool  and  deliberate  statement  of 
fact.  Every  one  sees  that  it  is  a  fervid  and  sudden  out- 
burst of  feeling.  Accursed  from  Christ  means  to  hate 
Christ,  whicli  for  Paul  was  a  contradiction  in  terms,  and 
it  is  followed  instantly  by  a  subsidence  into  argument. 
But  it  serves  to  emphasize  the  question  between  Jew  and 
Gentile.  It  shows  Paul  eager  to  fight  for  the  rights  of 
the  Gentile  to  the  benefit  of  Christianity,  yet  guarding 
himself  at  every  point  against  hostility  or  lukewarmness 


168  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

toward  his  own  country.  There  is  no  diilerence,  he  is 
ready  to  maintain  with  his  life,  between  the  Jew  and  the 
Greek.  *^  The  same  Lord  over  all  is  rich  nnto  all  that 
call  upon  him  "  ;  but  at  the  same  time  his  heart's  desire 
and  prayer  unto  God  is  that  Israel  should  be  saved. 

Is  the  unsettling  of  men's  minds  always  to  be  depre- 
cated ?  Never,  unless  they  are  settled  right — which  they 
never  can  be  in  this  life,  perhajis  not  in  any.  When  vol- 
canoes close  and  there  are  no  more  earthquakes,  and  the 
cyclone  has  ceased  to  sweep,  and  the  freshets  to  over- 
whelm, it  will  be  a  settled  earth,  but  it  will  be  a  dead 
earth. 

Eighty  or  ninety  years  ago,  says  an  antiquarian,  there 
were,  among  others  who  might  be  mentioned,  three  min- 
isters of  Essex  County,  Massachusetts,  mighty  preachers 
of  the  Westminster  doctrines,  ardent,  sagacious,  and 
progressive  Christians,  foremost  in  founding  Andover 
Seminary,  the  American  Board,  the  American  Tract 
Society,  the  American  Education  Society,  and  the  Massa- 
chusetts Domestic  Missionary  Society.  These  were  men 
who  needed  not  to  be  ashamed,  noted  and  admired  at 
home  and  throughout  the  country. 

The  first  was  Dr.  Samuel  Spring  of  Newburyport, 
father  of  Dr.  Gardner  Spring,  of  New  York  city.  In  the 
forty-six  years  of  his  pastorate  he  received  only  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-seven  to  the  church.  In  eighteen  con- 
secutive years  he  received  but  ten  members.  In  twenty- 
two  of  the  years  he  had  no  additions  at  all.  The  second 
was  Elijah  Parish,  D.  D.,  of  Byfield,  more  noted,  if  pos- 
sible, who,  in  the  thirty-seven  years  of  his  ministry,  ad- 
mitted but  one  hundred  and  five  to  the  church.  In 
twenty-nine  successive  years  there  were  but  sixteen  mem- 
bers added,  and  in  twenty-seven  of  the  thirty-seven  years 
no  additions  at  all.  Eev.  Leonard  Woods  was  the  third, 
afterward  D.  D.  and  Professor  at  Andover.     He  was  ten 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND  OF  PRESBYTERY.        1^9 

years  pastor  of  the  Second  Churcli  in  West  Newbury, 
during  which  time  he  received  but  fourteen  members — 
ten  by  profession.  And  no  church  in  Essex  North,  and 
perhaps  few  in  New  England,  did  better  than  these  men- 
tioned during  the  fifty  years  from  1775  to  1825. 

These  men  at  that  time  preached  according  to  the 
"Westminster  Confession,' and  the  Catechism  was  taught 
in  every  family  and  in  the  common  schools.  In  a  vol- 
ume of  admirable  sermons  by  Dr.  Parish,  which  doubt- 
less well  illustrates  the  style  and  scope  of  the  preaching 
of  these,  the  searcher  fails  to  find  in  a  single  instance  the 
love  of  God  in  Christ  magnified,  or  the  duty  of  sinners  set 
forth  to  love  and  obey  him,  and  to  repent  and  consecrate 
themselves  to  him  ;  or  any  preaching  to  the  unconverted 
as  such,  as  if  he  or  they  had  any  responsibility  in  the  case. 
Dr.  Woods  was  praised,  by  one  of  his  hearers,  because  he 
preached  so  much  of  God's  sovereignty  and  the  total  in- 
sufficiency of  all  unregenerate  exertions,  and  most  of  all 
because  he  had  said  :  **  When  the  devils  were  made,  God 
meant  they  should  be  devils." 

The  doctrine  of  God's  sovereignty  as  against  man's 
free  will  is  never  touched  by  Paul ;  as  a  doctrine  never  at 
all.  Both  are  assumed,  as  they  have  a  right  to  be. 
Neither  is  susceptible  of  proof.  Both  are  at  the  basis  of 
reason.  They  underlie  all  Paul's  argument,  but  he  does 
not  argue  them.  In  practical  affairs  this  is  always  done, 
and  Paul  was  eminently  practical.  He  gave  his  life  to 
converting  Gentiles  and  to  convincing  Jews  that  Gentiles 
had  a  right  to  be  converted.  He  did  not  attempt  to  ex- 
pound metaphysics.  But  he  was  not  afraid  of  metaphysics. 
He  never  went  out  of  his  way  either  to  explain  or  avoid 
it.  But  if  a  metaphysical  theory  promised  to  serve  his 
purpose,  he  swung  it  around  at  full  arm-sweep  with  the 
heartiest  good-will,  not  caring  though  the  whole  thing 
went  to  pieces  in  the  handling,  if  only  he  made  his  point. 


170  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

The  carefully  constructed  ^'  system  "  of  theology,  with  its 
elaborate  and  definite  ramifications  and  interlacings  and 
dovetailings  between  divine  sovereignty  and  freedom  of  the 
"will  was  not  made  by  the  Apostles,  but  by  the  later  theo- 
logians— the  Augustines,  the  Calvins,  the  Jonathan  Ed- 
wardses.  Paul  had  no  theory.  Paul's  divine  sover- 
eignty and  ours  surrounds,  envelopes,  clasps,  penetrates, 
sustains  our  free  will  as  the  atmosphere  surrounds  and 
sustains  the  earth.  How  could  men  wrap  an  ocean  fifty 
miles  deep  around  this  earth  without  suffocating  and 
crushing  out  all  life  ?  Yet  so  it  is  that  an  ocean  wraps 
US  around  in  which  we  are  not  suffocated  or  crushed  ;  in 
which  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  in  lack  of 
which  we  could  not  live  at  all.  Within  us  and  without 
us — in  the  bounding  blood,  in  the  sensitive  lungs,  in  the 
most  capricious  yet  constant  air — the  delicate  balance, 
the  marvelous  rhythmic  life,  is  always  preserved.  Mill- 
ions of  beings  do  not  know  of  the  existence  of  an  ocean 
of  air,  but  they  all  breathe.  We  may  not  formulate  the 
sovereignty  of  God,  but  we  discover  and  do  not  invent  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  we  are  conscious  that  within  those 
laws  we  are  as  free  as  God.  We  are  free  with  the  free- 
dom of  God — will  and  choice. 

It  is  surely  a  most  curious  twist  of  theological  can- 
dor and  ingenuity  which  makes  Paul  preach  the  opposite 
of  his  humane  and  liberal  thought.  He  has  passed 
through  a  looking-glass  world.  He  taught  that  God 
would  not  confine  himself  to  the  Jews,  but  w^as  Father  of 
the  Gentiles  also;  and  men  have  bejuggled  it  into  a  wick- 
ed doctrine  that  God  w^ould  save  or  damn  his  creatures 
as  he  pleased.  Paul  taught  that  God  would  save  as 
many  as  he  wished  to  save,  and  we  render  it  that  he  will 
damn  as  many  as  hq,  wishes  to  damn.  Paul  preached 
that  God  would  not  pass  by  or  reprobate  the  Gentiles, 
and  we  Gentiles  turn  upon  him  and  say  that  he  shall. 


ELECTIONS  OF  PAUL  AND   OF  PRESBYTERY.        171 

God  says:  ''I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have 
mercy.  Even  when  I  say  unto  the  wicked.  Thou  shalt 
die,  if  he  turn  from  his  sin,  he  shall  surely  live  !  He 
shall  not  die."  Presbytery  says  :  "  Not  so,  Lord  !  Thou 
must  stand  by  thy  word,  and  thy  word  shall  be  what  I 
say  it  is.  When  I  think  that  thou  predestinest  men  to 
everlasting  death,  they  are  unchangeably  designed  and 
their  number  can  not  be  increased  or  diminished." 

But  if  we  knock  this  all  away,  what  have  we  left  as  a 
deposit  of  faith  ? 

What  have  we  if  we  do  not  knock  it  away  ?  A  God 
all-powerful,  all-willful,  arbitrary  and  irresponsible,  cre- 
ating man  with  reason  yet  withholding  from  him  reasons, 
demanding  man's  prompt  decision  and  allegiance,  yet  pre- 
senting himself  to  man  as  a  God  utterly  capricious,  infi- 
nitely cruel,  and  sheltering  himself  from  man's  spirited 
and  just  remonstrance  behind  a  bulwark  of  unsearcJia- 
Ulity.  We  have  a  terrible  game  of  hide-and-seek,  with 
eternal  death  for  the  forfeit  and  with  the  odds  heavily 
aoainst  the  man. 

And  we  have  a  beautifully-balanced,  perfectly-adjusted 
theological  ^^  system." 

If  we  let  the  ''  system  "  fall  to  pieces,  what  have  we 
left  ?  A  God  all-powerful,  only  a  part  of  whose  ways  we 
know,  only  a  part  of  whose  plan  we  can  make  out,  but 
whose  tender  mercies  are  over  all  his  works.  A  God  in 
whose  unsearchability  all  men  may  take  shelter,  but  be- 
hind whose  unsearchability  no  man  can  hide.  A  God 
w^ho  made  man,  but  made  him  for  righteousness.  A  God 
who  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty,  but  who  is  forever 
showing  the  guilty  how  to  clear  himself,  and  showing  him 
that  it  is  not  by  slain  beasts  or  by  burnt  incense,  but  by  re- 
penting and  forsaking  sin  and  thus  making  his  soul  clean. 
A  God  sending  his  beloved  Son  into  the  world  not  to  con- 
demn the  world,  but  that  through  him  the  world  might 


172  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

be  saved ;  that,  seeing  God  in  Christ  more  clearly,  men 
might  love  God  as  seen  in  Christ  through  faith  in  him 
and  the  righteousness  that  comes  by  such  faith  ;  that  men 
might  be  buoyed  up  by  the  hope  of  his  resurrection  and 
purified  and  unselfed  by  fellowship  with  his  sufferings. 
A  God  who  desires  men  to  worship  him,  not  because  his 
self-conceit  demands  to  be  inflated  by  man's  adulation, 
but  because  he  is  the  eternal  righteousness,  the  ideal  of 
self-sacrifice  lavishing  himself  forever  on  his  creatures, 
and  therefore  worship  of  him  is  alike  the  measure  and 
means  of  man's  enlightenment. 

Progress  is  slow  ;  at  any  one  present  moment  it  seems 
to  be  no  progress  ;  but,  looking  back  to  the  far  begin- 
ning, we  can  discern  and  define  the  glacial  movement  of 
humanity  from  the  arctic  rigors  of  moral  ignorance  and 
darkness  toward  the  summer  of  eternal  life. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

SPIRITUAL  HEAT   CONSIDERED   AS   A   MODE   OF   MOTION". 

That  mental  and  moral,  rhythmic  and  regular,  in- 
ward and  inspired,  eternal  movement  which  was  felt 
upon  earth  when  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face 
of  the  waters ;  which  stirred  in  humanity  in  its  first  aspira- 
tion toward  the  God  from  whom  humanity  came  ;  which 
impelled  Abraham  to  leave  the  worship  of  idols  in  Ur  of 
the  Chaldees  and  go  up  in  the  worship  of  the  true  God 
to  Canaan  ;  which  impelled  Paul  to  abandon  the  worship 
of  God  by  the  slaughter  of  sheep  and  goats  for  the  wor- 
ship of  God  by  repentance  and  faith  in  Christ ;  which 
impelled  Luther  to  break  with  the  church  of  authority 
and  priestly  mediation,  and  establish  the  church  of  rea- 
son, under  one  mediator  between  God  and  man,  the  man 
Christ  Jesus— is  the  same  mental  and  moral  movement 
which  has  impelled  the  Presbyterian  church  to-day  to 
attempt  the  revision  of  its  creed,  the  same  movement 
which  is  represented  in  the  Congregational  churches  as 
The  New  Departure.  It  is  thus,  as  we  see,  no  new  de- 
parture. It  is  as  old  as  history.  It  is  as  old  as  human- 
ity. Yet  rightly  is  it,  also,  a  new  departure,  for  it  is 
new  every  morning  and  fresh  every  evening— new  as  our 
orisons,  fresh  as  our  vespers,  new  as  the  old  sun  swells 
newly  in  every  blossom  of  every  spring. 

Although  Congregationalism  is  here  in  a  very  small, 
not  to  say  minute,  minority,  it  is  not  impertinent  to 


174  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

notice  the  Congregational  movement,  because,  although 
it  is  local,  it  is  part  of  a  movement  that  is  general. 

There  can  be  no  revision  of  the  creed  in  the  Con- 
gregational church  because  there  is  no  Congregational 
church.  Every  church  is  an  independent  body  and 
makes  its  own  creed.  Congregational  churches  unite  in 
councils,  but  these  councils  are  not  authoritative  ;  only 
advisory.  The  new  departures  of  Congregationalism 
show  chiefly  in  bodies  organized  by  its  churches  for  some 
special  purpose  ;  as  in  the  American  Board  organized  for 
foreign  missionary  work,  and  in  the  Andover  Seminary 
organized  for  the  training  of  men  into  clergymen.  The 
former  is  supported  by  the  contributions  of  the  churches  ; 
the  latter  chiefly  by  a  church  fund.  Over  both  the  fight 
waxes  hot  this  moment  in  the  North.  Over  tlie  latter  the 
contention  is  so  sharp  that  it  is  called  by  that  ancient 
radicalism  which  has  become  the  conservatism  of  to-day 
— the  Andover  scandal.  This  has  a  bad  sound,  but  it  is 
really  no  worse  than  the  Paul-and-Barnabas  scandal  or 
tb.e  Paul-and- Peter  scandal,  which  were  settled  not  only 
amicably,  but  advantageously.  If  you  remember,  when 
Paul  and  Barnabas  designed  to  go  on  a  tour  of  inspection 
from  Antioch,  Barnabas  determined  to  take  with  them 
his  nephew,  Mark.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  more 
courteous  in  Barnabas  to  consult  Paul  before  determining 
who  should  be  admitted  to  the  intimacy  of  being  their 
traveling  companion,  and  perhaps  private  secretary.  But 
it  is  very  possible  that  Barnabas  had  reasons  for  suspect- 
ing that  Paul  did  not  wish  Mark  to  go,  and  therefore  Bar- 
nabas concluded  not  to  run  the  risk  of  refusal,  but  to  take 
Mark  and  say  nothing  about  it.  But  Paul  was  not  to  be 
so  easily  disposed  of.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  refuse  be- 
fore he  was  asked.  He  thought  not  good  to  take  with 
them  one  who  departed  from  them  from  Pamphylia  and 
went  not  with  them  to  the  work.     Barnabas,  forced  into 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTIOX.  175 

the  open  ojiiDosition  which  he  was  no  doubt  anxious  to 
avoid,  stood  up  bravely  for  his  sister's  son  ;  and  the  con- 
tention was  so  sharp  between  them  that  the  whole  plan 
was  broken  up.  Paul  took  his  man  and  WTut  one  way, 
and  Barnabas  took  his  man  and  went  another. 

Everything  indicates  that  Paul  was  wrong.  The 
trouble  hinged  upon  the  departure  of  Mark  from  Pam- 
phylia.  We  are  not  told  the  reason.  The  journey  was 
long  and  labored,  partly  by  sea.  Mark  might  have  been 
ill,  or  homesick,  or  seasick — but  whatever  it  w^s,  Paul 
thought  the  reason  trivial,  and  one  that  made  Mark  un- 
trustworthy. Perhaps  Paul  himself  was  a  little  piqued. 
At  any  rate,  Paul  was  in  the  wrong.  He  ought  to  have 
known  Mark's  character  better.  Mark's  mother's  house 
was  the  first  one  Peter  sought  after  his  release  from  pris- 
on ;  and  when  he  got  there  he  found  them  all  praying  for 
him,  which  speaks  well  for  Mark's  upbringing.  When 
Paul  preached  in  sea-born  Salamis,  the  delegation  had 
Mark  for  their  minister,  which  shows  him  true  to  his 
mother's  faith.  Afterward  Paul  himself,  a  prisoner  in 
Rome,  wrote  a  letter  of  recommendation  for  Mark,  speak- 
ing of  him  in  the  highest  terms  as  "  my  fellow-worker  into 
the  kingdom  of  God,  who  has  been  a  comfort  unto  me," 
showing  that  Paul  had  discovered  that  Mark  was  trust- 
worthy, and  that  there  had  been  a  complete  reconcili- 
ation between  them  and  a  return  to  cordial  compan- 
ionship. 

For  us  Mark's  certificate  of  character  is  the  honor  of 
the  authorship  of  the  second  gospel,  or  so  great  a  promi- 
nence in  the  early  Church  that  his  name  is  indissolubly 
connected  with  it ;  but  if  it  was  worth  while  to  send  down 
through  the  centuries  the  record  of  what  was  only  a  little 
tiff  between  two  eminent  and  admirable  men  over  a  third, 
wiio  became  scarcely  less  eminent  and  admirable,  we  can 
afford  to  give  one  Sunday  hour  to  a  dissension — even  some- 


176  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

times  a  dissension  heated  to  the  Pauline  point — founded  on 
the  moral  expansiveness  of  the  human  soul. 

In  further  guidance  of  our  own  conduct  we  may  also 
observe  that  when  Peter  came  to  Antioch  and  betrayed  his 
Master  a  second  time,  carrying  all  the  fearsome  with  him, 
insomuch  that  Barnabas  also  was  carried  away  with  their 
dissimulation,  Paul  threw  himself  into  the  breach  in- 
stantly and  openly.  This  time  undoubtedly  Barnabas 
was  wrong ;  but  he  was  wrong  with  Peter,  which  made 
it  almost  what  politicians  call  a  *'bolt."  However,  he  did 
not  say,  with  conscientious  old-school  Presbyterians  in  the 
creed  discussions,  *'  If  I  oppose  Peter  it  will  draw  party 
lines  which  it  may  take  years  to  obliterate.  It  is  not  a 
good  thing  for  friends  to  be  fighting  each  other  when  the 
enemy  is  attacking  the  citadel."  On  the  contrary,  Paul 
thought  that  decidedly  the  best  way  to  conduct  a  war  is 
to  secure  fidelity  to  the  cause  and  harmony  of  action  in- 
side the  fort  first ;  and  he  withstood  Peter  to  the  face  be- 
fore them  all, — as  we  do  this  day  ! 

The  Andover  scandal,  then,  as  I  understand  it,  is  this  : 
The  president  and  professors  of  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary at  Andover  are  charged  with  teaching  as  orthodoxy 
what  they  have  sworn  to  regard  as  heterodoxy.  The  con- 
servatives, do  not  plead  that  the  new  departure  or  its 
essence,  *^  future  probation,"  is  false,  but  that  it  is  not 
what  the  founders  of  Andover  Seminary  pledged  the  pro- 
fessors to  teach.  To  the  outside  world,  therefore,  it  ap- 
pears to  be  simply  a  question  of  common  honesty.  Old 
orthodoxy,  say  the  Gallios,  who  really  care  nothing  about 
orthodoxy,  old  or  new — old  orthodoxy  is  absurd,  but,  as 
the  Andover  professors  have  sworn  to  teach  it,  they  ought 
to  teach  it  or  go  ;  teach  it,  or  give  up  the  Andover  fund 
on  which  the  school  was  founded.  And  some  of  the 
conservative  clergymen  who  do  care  for  old  orthodoxy 
characterize  the  action  of  president  and  professors  as 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  177 

**the  most  stupendous  breach  of  trust  of  a  century  not 
unmarked  by  such  crimes." 

The  laity  do  not,  perhaps,  go  so  far  as  the  clergy. 
The  laity  impute  no  breach  of  trust  to  the  Andover  pro- 
fessors; on  the  contrary,  pronounce  them  eminently  hon- 
orable, able,  upright,  conscientious  Christian  men,  but 
mistaken  in  their  position. 

Judge  Hoar  compared  the  case  to  that  of  an  English 
landlady  who  would  not  allow  a  heathen  boarder  to  sacri- 
fice a  bull  to  Jupiter  in  her  back  parlor.  She  did  not  forbid 
freedom  of  thought,  but  her  back  parlor  was  no  place  for 
its  indulgence  in  that  peculiar  form.  So,  argued  Judge 
Hoar,  the  Andover  Seminary  is  no  place  to  teach  even 
the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion,  if  those  doctrines 
are  inconsistent  with  the  Andover  Creed.  I  suppose 
Judge  Hoar  could  hardly  find  anything  more  inconsistent 
with  his  idea  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion 
than  his  idea  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Andover  creed. 

In  like  manner,  the  daily  papers  express  probably  a 
wide-spread  lay  opinion  when  they  affirm  that  there  are 
very  many  laymen  who  do  not  coincide  with  the  com- 
plainants' theological  opinions  who  yet  agree  with  them 
to  this  extent  :  that  whether  the  Andover  creed  itself 
is  theologically  sound  or  not,  the  trust  by  which  the 
seminary  is  mainly  supported  demands  strict  adherence 
to  the  letter  of  the  creed  ;  and  for  the  sake  of  perfect 
honesty,  therefore,  and  as  an  example  of  the  fulfillment 
of  the  letter  of  an  obligation,  much  needed  in  these  days, 
it  would  be  better  that  further  enjoyments  of  those  old 
bequests  should  cease  than  that  the  slightest  suspicion  of 
their  perversion  should  go  forth  to  the  world  at  large. 

This  is  a  phase  of  the  question  to  which  too  little  atten- 
tion has  been  paid,  and  which  is  certainly  indispensable  to 
a  fair  understanding  of  the  conservative  side  of  the  con- 
troversy. 
12 


178  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

All  this  constitutes  the  Andover  scandal  as  well  it  may. 
A  stupendous  breach  of  trust  is,  or  ought  to  be,  not 
merely  an  ecclesiastical,  but  a  penitentiary  question. 

The  "  Andover  Fuss  "  is  what  it  was  called  forty  years 
ago.  Seeming  only  an  ecclesiastical  quarrel  about  a  non- 
practical  point,  it  is  the  successive  bursting  of  burs  that 
marks  the  ripening  of  successive  kernels  of  truth.  And 
while  the  kernel  must  ripen  or  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of 
life  fail,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  bur  does  vital 
work  in  holding  fast  the  precious  seed  till  moved  by  the 
internal  and  eternal  force  to  loosen  its  lifelong  grasp. 

But  while  the  drama  is  the  same,  the  actors  have 
changed — some  in  person,  some  in  parts.  The  villain  of 
the  last  generation  has  become  the  hero  of  this.  Profes- 
sor Park  in  particular  is  gathering  up  the  weeds  and 
grass  and  stones  that  were  flung  at  him  forty  years  ago, 
and  is  shying  them  at  President  Smyth  with  as  hearty  a 
good  will  as  if  he  did  not  know  exactly  how  they  could 
hit  and  not  hurt. 

The  contention  was  so  sharp  between  Paul  and  Bar- 
nabas that  they  snapped  apart.  The  contention  is  so 
sharp  between  new  Andover  and  old  orthodoxy  that  they 
have  grappled. 

*'  Dare  any  of  you,"  says  Paul,  sternly,  '^  having  a  mat- 
ter against  another,  to  go  to  law  before  the  unjust  and 
not  before  the  saints  ?  " 

And  a  very  considerable  and  a  very  respectable  co- 
terie of  Congregationalists  in  Massachusetts  reply  :  '^  Yes, 
we  dare,"  and  betake  themselves  with  their  Andover  dis- 
putation to  the  Supreme  Court. 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Massachusetts  is  unjust,  nor  do  I  understand  that  Paul 
meant  to  accuse  the  courts  of  Corinth  of  injustice.  But 
they  were  heathen  and  did  not  know  or  care  for  the  ties 
which  bound  together  the  early   Christians.     The   Su- 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  1Y9 

preme  Court  are  lawyers,  and,  as  lawyers,  not  concerned 
with  questions  of  theology. 

But  it  is  not  theology,  claim  these  Gongregationalists. 
It  is  not  the  theological  or  metaphysical  aspect  of  the 
question  which  brings  it  before  the  courts.  It  is  the 
moral  aspect.  Men  who  hold  no  opinion  on  the  cove- 
nant of  the  redemption,  who  do  not  know  the  difference 
between  Hopkinsianism  and  Grand  Llamaism,  who  could 
not  define  the  federal  headship  of  Adam  to  save  their 
own  heads,  have  yet  a  clear  conviction  that  whatever 
Hopkinsianism  may  be,  the  man  who  says  he  will  teach  it 
ought  to  teach  it  ;  and  if  he  takes  the  money  that  was  de- 
voted to  its  teaching,  and  with  that  money  teaches  some- 
thing else,  it  would  pass  for  pretty  sharp  practice  on  Wall 
Street,  whatever  it  may  be  called  in  Audover. 

And  in  proof  that  a  brother  oiiended  is  harder  to  be 
won  than  a  strong  city  of  foes,  see  how  tenderly  we  deal 
with  the  forth-putting  of  Presbyterian  new-departure 
revisionists,  while  we  appeal  to  law  as  well  as  gospel  to 
unseat  our  new-departure  Andover  professors.  Says  a 
Congregational  official,  conservative  of  the  conservatives  : 
'^  There  is  a  great  deal  said  just  now  in  certain  quarters 
about  our  Presbyterian  friends,  and  the  restiveness  which 
they  are  thought  to  exhibit  under  the  Westminster  formu- 
lae, which  still,  theoretically,  mold  all  their  opinions. 
And  the  accusation  has  not  been  unmade  that  there  is  an 
inherent  and  inevitable  falseness  in  every  pretense  on  the 
part  of  a  Presbyterian  pastor  of  to-day  to  answer  affirma- 
tively the  'questions'  asked  at  his  ordination,  which 
ought  to  be  so  repugnant  as  to  be  impossible  to  an  honest 
man.  The  second  of  these  questions  is  this  :  *  Do  you 
sincerely  receive  and  adopt  the  Westminster  Confession 
and  Catechisms  as  containing  the  system  of  doctrine 
taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  ?'  And  reference  is  espe- 
cially had  to  the  divine  ordination  of  the  non-elect  *to 


180  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

dishonor  and  wrath ' ;  to  the  positive  guilt  of  original, 
previous  to  actual  sin  ;  and  to  other  portions  which  it  is 
said  that  nobody  now  believes.  Yet  it  is  insisted  that  the 
Presbyterian  ministry  keej)  on  solemnly  declaring  that 
they  believe  them,  and  will  preach  them — doing  neither. 

"Now,  the  fact  that  there  is  a  movement  for  revision 
does  surely  indicate  that  there  is  some  truth  in  the  claim. 
Yet  we  have  no  idea  that  it  could  be  fair  to  insist  that 
our  Presbyterian  brethren  who  believe  and  teach  just  as 
other  evangelical  people  do,  on  all  these  points  under 
question,  are  guilty  of  any  inward  falseness  in  the  mat- 
ter. The  fact  is  that — in  common  with  all  thinking  and 
sensible  men — they  hold  their  faith  in  the  only  way  in 
which  they  can  hold  it,  in  that  reasonable  aspect  which 
has  been  shaped  in  their  minds  by  the  force  and  pressure 
of  the  whole  world  of  Christian  thought.  For  substance 
of  doctrine  they  hold  it. 

"  So  long  as  they  remain  true  to  the  central  and  essen- 
tial idea  which  characterizes  their  system,  they  are  hon- 
est men,  and  uncensurable." 

Thus  far  it  is  all  a  commendable  Christian  liberality ; 
but  here  comes  the  'Hittle  dig"  at  Andover,  for  whose 
sweet,  pungent  sake  I  half  suspect  it  is  that  so  much 
consideration  is  folded  around  these  Presbyterian  lapses ! 
*^Did  they  get  their  living  from  funds  founded  expressly 
to  secure  the  perpetual  teaching  of  those  Westminster 
doctrines,  and  did  they  actually  teach  doctrines  from 
which  the  Westminster  men  would  have  shrunk  with 
horror,  that  would  be  another  question." 

That  is,  you  may  preach  not  exactly  what  you  be- 
lieve, but  what  other  people  preach,  and  be  an  honest 
man — if  you  preach  on  a  yearly  salary  ;  but  if  you  preach 
thus  on  an  established  fund — why,  that  is  another  ques- 
tion. You  may  hold  your  faith  in  the  only  way  you  can 
hold  it — reasonably,  sensibly,  substantially,  essentially — 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  181 

if  you  are  only  a  Presbyterian  minister.  But  if  you  are 
an  Andover  professor,  you  must  hold  it  as  you  can  not 
hold  it — unreasonably,  punctiliously,  as  no  thinking  and 
sensible  men  do  !  Else  you  are  guilty  of  a  breach  of  trust 
and  an  Andover  scandal. 

Ex-Professor  Phelps,  of  Andover,  father  of  a  clearer 
theological  insight  than  his  own,*  goes  even  beyond  his 
conservative  comrades.  He  will  not  admit  the  test  of  a 
lawsuit.  Even  if  new  Andover  has  the  law,  he  says, 
honor  should  restrain  them.  "  Should  it  be  sufficient 
for  honorable  men  if,  in  law,  the  liberty  they  are  assum- 
ing can  not  be  rebuked  ?  Should  it  even  content  them 
that  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  would  not  re- 
move them  from  their  chairs  ?"  He  considers  it  mere 
hardihood  to  think  that  the  founders  would  have  approved 
the  faith  of  the  Andoverians  if  it  had  been  imported  in 
their  day,  and,  therefore,  the  professors  should  make  it  a 
point  of  honor  not  to  teach  it,  although  the  creed  says 
nothing  about  it. 

So  far  as  this  is  to  the  point,  the  question  is  not 
whether,  if  the  new  theology  had  been  taken  back  a  hun- 
dred years,  the  founders  would  have  accepted  it,  but 
whether,  if  the  founders  were  brought  forward  a  hundred 
years,  they  would  not  accept  it.  To  this,  one  could  un- 
hesitatingly answer  Yes,  because  they  accepted  the  best 
light  of  their  day,  as  their  heirs  and  assigns  accept  the 
best  light  of  to-day. 

A  young  lady  was  visiting  in  Andover  not  long  since, 
and  in  the  course  of  conversation  with  the  emeritus  pro- 
fessor, is  said  to  have  been  asked  by  him  how  she  would 
like  it  if  she  left  money  to  pay  for  instruction  in  French 
in  a  particular  institution,  and  a  professor  supported  by 

*  In  the  yesterdays,  when  this  was  written.  To-day  alas !  on  earth 
is  no  vision  so  clear  as  his  whom  the  heaven  has  received. 


182  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

her  endowment  should  teach  German  instead.  Her  reply 
was  that  she  should  not  like  it  at  all,  but  she  should  cer- 
tainly expect  that  the  professor  would  teach  French  as  it 
toas  spoken  at  the  time.  The  learned  ex-professor  smiled, 
said  that  he  had  not  been  fortunate  in  his  choice  of  an 
illustration,  and  passed  to  another  topic  of  conversation. 

Ex- Professor  Park,  of  Andoyer — forty  years  a  radical, 
pushed  by  the  conseryatives,  now  in  turn  a  conseryative, 
pushing  the  radicals — is  so  brilliant,  so  pungent,  so  rogu- 
ish, so  extraordinarily  cleyer,  that  he  must  know  better. 
When  he  gibes  at  the  ^^  moral  integrity"  of  Andover 
and  "i\\Q  new  Andover  ethics,"  it  must  be  an  intel- 
lectual caper.  Time-stained  pamphlets,  exhumed  from 
boxes  beneath  the  eaves,  still  glitter  with  the  sarcasm,  are 
moist  with  the  tears,  and  red  hot  with  the  wrath  evoked 
by  the  derelictions  of  Professor  Park  when  he  presided 
over  the  seminary  whose  head  has  been  cut  off,  although 
it  refuses  to  roll  into  the  basket.  Every  charge  of  breach 
of  trust,  logical  inconsistency,  dangerous  error  brought 
against  President  Smyth  to-day  was  brought  against  Pro- 
fessor Park  forty  years  ago.  All  that  is  not  appalling  is 
amusing  in  the  spectacle  of  this  heretic  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, absolutely  forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind 
and  reaching  forth  unto  the  heretic  of  to-day  with  the 
same  unwieldy  blunderbusses  that  fired  their  vain  volleys 
at  him.  That  it  is  a  holy  war  does  not  prevent  the  tac- 
tics from  being  grotesque. 

In  their  time  the  old  formulas  did  good  service,  but 
the  world  moves — moves  in  the  evolution  of  religious 
truth  just  as  really  and  rapidly  as  in  the  evolution  of 
material  truth.  Flint  and  steel  marked  a  momentous 
invention.  The  doctrine  of  election,  in  politics  and  in 
theology,  was  a  great  advance  over  hereditary  transmis- 
sion of  saving  grace  and  sovereign  power.  But  to  take 
the  doctrine  of  election  out  of  history  and  present  it  to 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTIOX.  1S3 

the  world  as  a  nugget  of  unrelated  truth  is  just  as  ab- 
surd as  it  would  be  to  declare  flint  and  steel  the  one 
divinely  appointed  method  of  kindling  the  domestic 
hearth. 

Then,  as  now,  the  piece  of  toughest  resistance  was 
the  Westminster  Catechism.  '^If  there  are  words  in  the 
English  language  which  can  make  anything  plain,"  pro- 
tested the  remonstrants  against  Professor  Park  in  1849, 
**the  founders  have  made  plain  and  undeniable  their  in- 
tention that  the  doctrines  of  the  Assembly's  Catechism, 
and  no  other,  should  be  maintained,  defended,  and 
proj)agated  through  the  instrumentality  of  their  semi- 
nary." But,  under  Professor  Park's  deft  hand,  original 
sin  and  other  related  doctrines  prove  to  be  an  altogether 
different  grist  from  that  which  came  out  of  the  West- 
minster hopper.  Just  as  heretic  Smyth  is  charged  with 
the  *^ stupendous  crime"  of  breach  of  trust,  the  beloved 
Park  aiding  and  abetting  the  charge,  so  did  the  world, 
the  flesh,  and  the  devil  charge  at  Professor  Park  in  1853. 
*^  How  can  the  professor  reconcile  his  position  with  the 
principles  of  moral  integrity  ?  On  the  one  hand,  dis- 
tinct and  explicit  declarations  of  doctrinal  belief,  and 
pledges  to  teach  in  accordance  therewith,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  course  of  teaching  apparently  contrary. 
There  must  rest  a  painful  feeling  of  misgiving,  lest  in 
his  ardent  love  and  pursuit  of  philosophical  speculations 
he  may  have  forgotten  what  is  due  to  those  high  princi- 
ples of  uprightness  which  ought  so  manifestly  to  govern 
all  the  professors  in  the  seminary  that  every  question  re- 
specting it  should  be  wholly  precluded  ! " 

Is  that  of  1853  or  1890  ? 

Professor  Park  is  of  too  large  a  nature  to  lay  to  heart 
little  grievances  of  this  sort.  In  his  noble  forgetfulness 
he  now  declares  that,  if  an  official  doubt  of  his  allegiance 
to  the  creed  had  ever  been  intimated,  ^'I  should  have  re- 


18i  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

garded  the  intimation  as  an  insult  to  me  and  as  an  im- 
plied charge  of  prevarication  ! " 

"I  am  afraid/' said  President  Lincoln  to  a  friendly 
judge  who  was  giving  an  account  of  his  proceedings  at 
the  nominating  convention,  ^*  I  am  afraid,  there,  you  pre- 
varicated a  little." 

**  Prevaricate  ! "  cried  tlie  too  ardent  judge  ;  "  I  lied 
like !" 

Beyond  and  above  any  crime  charged  upon  Professor 
Smyth,  this  conservative  of  to-day  but  inconoclast  of  yes- 
terday was  accused  of  having  repeatedly  stamped  the  arti- 
cles that  he  rejected  ''with  ridicule  and  exposed  them  to 
public  scorn."  And  I  am  afraid  he  did.  I  am  sure  that 
when  he  saw  the  bur  splitting  it  was  not  in  him  to  press 
it  together,  but  rather  to  join  forces  with  the  interior 
expanding  truth  and  hasten  its  release  by  the  keen  thrusts 
of  his  playful  and  polished  but  powerful  wit. 

On  the  face  of  it,  those  theological  Forty-niners  had 
Professor  Park  on  the  hip  exactly  as  Professor  Park  has 
President  Smyth  on  the  hip  now.  Each  alike  had  to 
avow  on  the  day  of  his  inauguration,  and,  to  prevent  a 
subsequent  breaking  away,  every  five  years  thereafter,  his 
faith  in  the  Westminster  Catechism. 

To  prove  Professor  Park's  heresy,  the  remonstrants 
quoted  from  his  sermons  such  words  of  wisdom  and  right- 
eousness as  make  the  yellow  pages  of  my  garret  rubbish 
thrill  with  living  fire.  Why  is  Professor  Park  training  in 
the  old  camp  when  his  own  words  show  that  he  belongs 
to  the  new  departure,  falsely  so  called  ?  Egbert  Smyth 
never  struck  a  truer  note,  never  gave  a  clearer  exposition 
of  the  proper  method  of  Bible  interpretation  and  the 
common  errors  of  exegesis,  than  does  Professor  Park  in 
these  heretical  and  heaven-taught  sermons.  Every  page 
is  crowded  with  truth,  discrimination,  the  all-compelling 
eloquence  of  lucidity.     It  is  inexplicable  that  his  oppo- 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  185 

nents  did  not  yield  to  their  force  at  once.  It  is  inex- 
plicable that  pulpits  should  still  be  found  preaching  the 
dead  and  petrified  method  of  interpretation  when,  for 
these  forty  years  and  more,  Professor  Park  has  been  so  il- 
luminating the  living  way.  It  is  a  freak  of  nature  that 
Professor  Park  himself,  in  his  vigorous  and  magnificent 
age,  should  turn  upon  Professor  Smyth  for  following  in 
the  footsteps  of  his  splendid  and  stirring  prime. 

Professor  Park  is  the  most  brilliant  as  well  as  the 
most  delightful  man  in  the  world.  He  is  always  brim- 
ming over  with  mischief — using  the  word  '*  for  true  heart, 
and  not  for  harm."  It  must  be  that  as  his  work  is  well 
done  he  can  not  help  playing.  Walking  up  and  down  the 
beautiful  greenery,  wherein,  like  gems,  are  set  his  house 
and  all  the  saints'  houses  and  haunts  of  the  Andover 
school  of  the  prophets,  he  spies  President  Smyth,  re- 
mote, unfriended,  melancholy,  gliding  out  from  the 
shadows  of  Brechan  Hall  ;  and  instantly  grabs  a  wisp  of 
** speculations"  and  handfuls  of  *' moral  integrity"  and 
**  German  rationalism  "  and  lets  fly  at  him  for  pure  fun, 
as  who  should  say  :  '*  See  here,  young  man,  if  you  think  it 
is  a  fine  thing  to  step  into  my  shoes  and  be  a  progressive 
theologian  instead  of  a  stationary  one,  take  this — and  this 
— and  this,  and  see  how  you  like  it ! " 

Just  as  unprogressive  theology  casts  longing  glances 
back  from  the  aggressive  incursions  of  present  thought  to 
the  good  old  times  when  Professor  Park  held  fast  the 
form  of  sound  doctrine,  so  did  the  stationary  of  the  last 
generation  bemoan  themselves  for  the  golden  age  of  the 
good  Dr.  Woods,  when  the  Westminster  Catechism  was 
in  its  glory  of  unquestioned  supremacy.  The  doctrine  of 
original  sin,  including  the  personal  guilt  of  each  and 
every  individual  of  the  human  race,  in  all  successive  ages 
to  the  end  of  time  for  its  commission  ;  and  the  just  desert 
of  and  liability  to  everlasting  punishment  in  hell,  by  one 


186  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

and  all  of  the  posterity  of  Adam,  for  their  violation  of  the 
law  of  God  imputed  to  them  as  their  own  transgression, 
done  by  them  in  Mm,  their  antecedent  representative  and 
covenant  head — this  good  old  wholesale  doctrine,  not 
whittled  down  by  reason,  but  olfici ally  guarded  and  trans- 
mitted by  Professor  Park's  model  predecessor.  Dr.  AVoods 
— this  doctrine  the  remonstrants  of  1849  declared  to  be 
the  touchstone  of  New  England  orthodoxy.  No  doubt  a 
great  host  outside  of  New  England  orthodoxy  will  agree 
with  them  and  gloat  over  it  with  unseemly  mirth. 

But  I,  who  gather  within  mj^self  the  strictness  of  eight 
generations  of  New  England  orthodoxy,  am  justified 
therein  by  finding  that  Dr.  Woods  says  nothing  of  the 
sort.  Dr.  Woods,  so  far  from  setting  his  hand  and  seal 
to  such  irrationalism,  left  on  record  a  theology  worthy 
of  his  grandson,  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  John  Cotton  Smith, 
beloved  and  lamented  rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascen- 
sion in  New  York  ;  worthy  of  the  gracious  presence  and 
noble  promise  of  his  great-grandson,  late  the  youthful 
rector  of  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  in  Beverly,  Massachu- 
setts, and  now  holding  up  the  right  hand  of  Phillips 
Brooks  in  Boston  ;  worthy  even  of  his  great-great-grand- 
son, the  most  reverend  of  all,  John  Cotton  Smith,  of  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Innocents,  whose  theology  is  yet  un- 
defined, but  -was  certified  by  the  Redeemer  of  the  world  as 
entitling  him  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Dr.  Woods,  who 
preached  so  powerfully  and  so  unsuccessfully  the  divine 
sovereignty  in  the  creation  of  devils  with  fore-knowledge 
that  they  w^ould  be  and  fore-will  that  they  should  be 
devils  ;  Dr.  Woods,  reared  in  New  England  and  educated 
in  her  most  ancient  college,  for  many  years  the  only  theo- 
logical professor  in  her  only  theological  seminary — rose 
as  spokesman  for  his  brethren  and  loudly  proclaimed  : 
*' Every  attempt  which  has  been  made  to  prove  that  God 
ever  imputes  to  man  any  sinful  disposition  or  act  which 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  187 

is  not  strictly  his  own  has  failed  of  success.  ...  I 
say,  with  the  utmost  frankness,  that  we  are  7iot  entirely 
satisfied  with  the  language  used  on  this  subject  in  the  As- 
semMy's  Catechistn.  Though  v/e  hold  that  catechism, 
taken  as  a  whole,  in  the  highest  estimation,  we  could  not 
with  a  good  conscience  subscribe  to  every  expression  it 
contains  in  relation  to  the  doctrine  of  original  sin. 
Hence  it  is  common  for  us,  when  we  declare  our  assent  to 
the  catechism,  to  do  it  ivith  an  exjjrcss  or  i?nj)lied  re- 
striction. We  receive  the  catechism  generally  as  contain- 
ing a  summary  of  the  principles  of  Christianity.  But  that 
the  sinfulness  of  our  natural  fallen  state  consists,  in  any 
measure,  in  the  guilt  of  Adam's  first  sin  is  what  we  can 
not  admity  And  seven  times  afterward  did  he  loudly  re- 
peat that  he  subscribed  to  the  Westminster  Catechism  in 
general  and  denied  it  in  particular.  And  all  the  people 
said  Amen  !  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  anything  dishonest  or 
sinister  in  a  proceeding  so  open. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  striking  spectacle  of  a  group 
of  solid  New  England  Christians  conscientiously  striving 
to  oust  President  Smyth  because  he  can  not  keep  step  on 
the  creed  with  Professor  Park  ;  and  we  go  back  thirty 
years  and  find  another  group  of  saintly  men  trying  just 
as  hard  to  oust  Professor  Park  because  he  could  not  keep 
step  with  Dr.  Woods  on  the  catechism,  and  we  go  back 
thence  twenty  years,  and  find  that  Dr.  Woods  made  no 
pretense  of  keeping  step  at  all.  He  made  the  march 
right  loyally,  but  he  deliberately  proclaimed  from  his 
mountain-top,  the  wide  world  over,  that  the  catechism 
was  often  out  of  time,  and  that  he  and  his  comrades  had 
no  scruple  in  marching  to  their  own  music. 

Professor  Park  finds  that  President  Smyth  has  softened 
down  the  everlasting  penalty  of  the  creed  into  everlasting 
possibility,  and  Dr.  Dana  mourned  that  Professor  Park 
had  softened  down  the  original  sin  of  the  catechism  into 


188  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

a  *' series  of  intense  expressions."  But  Dr.  Woods,  to 
whom  we  are  directed  as  the  standard,  made  short  work 
of  both  creed  and  catechism,  and  taught  the  common- 
sense  doctrine  that  original  sin  is  the  sin  that  originates 
with  every  man.  Why  must  President  Smyth  shut  out 
all  the  light  let  in  by  Professor  Park  in  the  last  genera- 
tion, and  by  Dr.  Woods  in  the  preceding  generation,  and 
contract  his  pupils  to  the  gray  twilight  of  Westminster 
Abbey  ? 

When  Professor  Park  reminds  the  Andover  trustees 
that  they  ^'^have  a  sacred  responsibility  for  the  theological 
character  of  the  seminary "  against  President  Smyth's 
heterodoxies,  he  must  remember  that  when  he  was  presi- 
dent fifty  years  ago  the  trustees  of  that  day  were  just  as 
solemnly  warned  against  him  ;  were  bidden  by  the  con- 
servatives to  remember  that  '^both  he  and  they  are  ac- 
countable to  a  higher  tribunal,  where  evasions,  limita- 
tions, and  mental  reservations  are  of  no  avail."  By  these 
evasions,  limitations,  and  mental  reservations  they  meant 
Professor  Park  ;  and  the  very  things  to  which  they  gave 
these  ugly  names  were  some  of  the  very  best  and  sound- 
est and  most  enduring  points  of  his  theology  ! 

With  a  charming,  not  to  say  jolly,  boyishness,  the 
octogenarian  professor  maintains  that  President  Smyth 
can  not  subscribe  to  the  Andover  creed  without  having 
been  thoroughly  ashamed  of  himself  when  he  made  his 
declaration  of  faith  in  public,  and  without  being  again 
thoroughly  ashamed  of  himself  at  every  successive  period 
of  five  years,  when  he  renews  it. 

But  Dr.  Park  must  surely  remember  the  glee  with 
which  he  used  to  describe  himself  and  his  brother  pro- 
fessors as  marching  up  every  five  years  to  swear  that  they 
were  not  any  wiser  than  they  had  been  five  years  before  ! 
He  must  recall  the  charges  which  were  flung  at  him  fifty 
years  ago — charges  of  inconsistency  in  signing  the  creed 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  189 

while  he  was  ''evading  the  definition  of  the  atonement "  ; 
charges  of  teaching  ''a  religion  manifestly  false  and  ab- 
surd as  well  as  dangerous  and  destructive — in  other  words, 
anything  but  Christianity."  Does  he  recall  that  he  was 
ever  ashamed  of  himself  for  it  ?  I  think  if  Professor 
Park  would  lay  his  hand  on  his  heart  and  tell  the  truth, 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  he  would 
say  that  he  gloried  in  it ! 

He  denounces  the  rationalistic  drift  of  Andover,  pro- 
testing that  the  founders  ''  could  never  have  been  per- 
suaded to  endow  a  seminary  which  would  drop  one  article 
of  its  creed  at  every  fresh  arrival  of  a  German  steamer." 
His  own  critics  of  his  early  days  could  not  be  so  witty,  but 
they  were  not  less  sensible  of  the  breach  of  trust  and  mis- 
appropriation of  funds  involved  in  what  they  called  his 
"polished  and  frigid  rationalism."  He  declares  that  of 
all  the  orthodox  seminaries  in  the  United  States,  ''there 
is  not  one  which  is  so  firmly  bound  to  resist  the  new 
movement  as  is  the  seminary  at  Andover."  Just  so  the 
earnest  old  fathers  of  1853  warned  the  same  seminary 
authorities  that  if  they  would  "  persist  in  supporting 
Professor  Park  they  would  be  guilty  of  such  violation  of 
duty  and  responsibility  as  rests  upon  no  similar  band  of 
trustees  in  the  land."  He  maintains  stoutly  that  if 
President  Smyth  has  any  right  to  his  "  professor's  chair," 
"  then  it  is  time  to  dispense  with  the  English  language  "  ; 
for  the  men  of  the  new  departure,  he  cries  aloud,  "are 
revolutionizing  the  English  language  as  well  as  the  An- 
dover creed."  Just  as  desperate  a  raid  upon  his  own 
use  of  the  English  language  made  they  of  the  old  time, 
though  with  more  Grand isonian  and  complimentary  per- 
sonal raference.  "  He  is  in  direct  conflict  with  the  cate- 
chism to  which  he  has  promised  to  conform  in  all  his 
theological  teachings.  We  are  aware  that  he  is  extreme- 
ly skillful  in  the  use  of  language,  and  that  many  strong 


190  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

phrases  have  yielded  much  of  their  meaning,  when  couched 
in  his  pliant  and  beautiful  forms  of  illustration  ;  but  the 
stubborn  English  of  the  Assembly's  Catechism  is  proof 
against  the  enchantments  of  his  brilliant  but  deceitful 
rhetoric." 

Professor  Park  insists  that  the  main  spirit  of  the  new 
departure  is  antagonistic  to  the  main  spirit  of  the  An- 
dover  creed  in  its  relation  to  the  doctrines  of  total  de- 
pravity, the  atonement,  and  future  punishment ;  but,  by 
a  singular  parallelism,  when  he  was  Abbott  professor,  his 
critics  claimed  that  iiis  theory  was  '^a  complete  denial  of 
native  depravity,"  that  he  *' mollified  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin,"  and  that  his  ^^  notion  of  the  atonement  was 
evasive,  extremely  vague,  and  unsatisfactory  ! " 

Better  than  Judge  Hoar,  better  than  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Massachusetts,  Professor  Park  knows  how  little 
and  how  much  there  is  in  the  clamor  for  President  Smyth's 
removal,  in  the  cry  against  his  honesty — and  that  is,  noth- 
ing at  all. 

When  Dr.  Woods  was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  and 
Dr.  Park  reigned  in  his  stead,  he  struck  the  old  truths 
with  so  direct  and  so  forcible  a  blow  that  the  shower  of 
sparks  seemed  the  illumination  of  a  new  departure,  and 
people  who  had  done  up  their  minds  in  camphor  and  did 
not  wish  to  open  and  air  and  use  them  any  more,  tried  to 
save  themselves  all  mental  trouble  by  dismissing  him  from 
the  seminary.  But  neither  would  the  seminary  dismiss 
him,  nor  would  he  be  dismissed,  but  stood  up  stoutly  for 
Ms  total  depravity  and  his  views  of  future  punishment 
and  original  sin,  declaring  that  ^*  when  a  theorist  seizes 
at  the  living  words  of  the  Bible  and  puts  them  into  his 
vise,  and  straightens  or  crooks  them  into  the  dogma  that 
man  is  blaraable  before  he  chooses  to  do  wrong,  deserving 
of  punishment  for  the  involuntary  nature  which  he  has 
never  consented  to  gratify,  really  sinful  before  he  actu- 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  191 

ally  sins,  then  the  language  of  emotion,  forced  from  its 
right  place  and  treated  as  if  it  were  a  part  of  a  nicely 
measured  syllogism,  hampers  and  confuses  his  reason- 
ings, until  it  is  given  back  to  the  use  for  which  it  was 
first  intended  and  from  which  it  never  ought  to  have 
been  diverted."  ^ 

Professor  Park  is  my  very  dear  friend,  or,  if  that  be 
presuming,  I  am  his  most  ardent  admirer ;  and  when  a 
man  has  held  up  the  candle  of  the  Lord  as  high  and 
bright  as  he  has  done,  it  is  not  for  us  to  chide,  though 
the  apostle  of  sweetness  and  light  does  for  a  moment  for- 
get his  own  illumination  and  not  only  tries  to  thrust 
President  Smyth's  candle  under  a  bushel,  but  to  sit  on 
the  bushel ! 

Conservative  orthodoxy,  liberal  Christianit}',  secular 
common  sense,  and  ultra  radicalism  unite  in  condemn- 
ing the  Andover  professors,  declaring  that  they  are  not 
to  be  justified  in  their  claim  that  they  have  a  right 
under  the  creed  to  teach  their  doctrines.  Neverthe- 
less, the  Andover  professors  are  right,  and  all  the  others 
are  wrong.  If  the  Andover  professors  should  give  up  the 
contest  and  withdraw  from  the  seminary,  they  would  be 
guilty  of  a  breach  of  the  trust  confided  to  them  by  the 
founders.  It  is  not  necessarily  stupid  in  outside  circles 
to  misunderstand  the  case,  but  it  is  not  wise  to  pronounce 
upon  it  until  it  is  understood,  and  it  can  not  be  under- 
stood without  attention  to  the  meaning,  the  use,  and  the 
weight  of  words.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  speak  words 
with  a  hop,  and  read  them  with  a  skip,  and  pronounce 
judgment  upon  them  with  a  jump,  that  when  important 
issues  are  involved  we  rush  wildly  astray. 

The  struggle  is  not,  as  the  world  assumes,  over  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  creed,  but  over  the  interpretation  of  the 
creed,  just  as  the  struggle  in  the  Church  to-day  is  not 
over  the  acceptance  of  the  Bible  but  over  the  interpreta- 


192  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

tion  of  the  Bible.  The  present  professors  accept  the  creed. 
The  outside  world  says  they  ought  not  to  accept  it.  Must 
the  professors,  the  modern  experts,  the  men  who  have 
made  the  creed  the  study  of  their  life — must  they  relin- 
quish it  actually  or  constructively  because  the  editors, 
the  lawyers,  the  pastors,  and  the  previous  generation  of 
experts  think  they  ought  ?  That  is,  must  a  man  guide 
his  life  by  his  own  conscience  and  consciousness  or  by 
other  persons'  ?  The  founders  of  Andover  prescribed 
only  that  professors  should  accept  and  teach  the  creed. 
They  did  not  prescribe  how  it  should  be  interpreted. 
The  professors  swear  that  they  do  accept  and  teach  it. 
Who  shall  say  them  nay  ? 

Old  orthodoxy  charges  that  they  interpret  it  so  differ- 
ently from  the  founders  that  it  amounts  to  a  rejection  of 
the  creed  ;  and  that  they  yet  persist  in  using — nay,  even 
'^  affect  "  to  use — the  old-fasliioned  terms.  Mr.  Charles 
Voysey,  transferring  to  the  extreme  left  that  mental  qual- 
ity which  on  the  extreme  right  is  called  bigotry,  says  : 

'*  They  scandalously  and  with  intellectual  fraud  try 
to  foist  a  new  meaning  into  the  old  horrible  Christian 
phrases,  a  meaning  the  exact  opposite  of  the  hitherto 
accepted  sense.  I  reject  these  miserable  subterfuges  .  .  . 
because  the  process  of  interpretation  is  fraudulent." 

But  the  new  theology  is  right  in  refusing  to  sacrifice 
to  the  old  one  single  word.  To  the  truth  it  is  willing  to 
sacrifice  all  words,  to  falsehood  none.  If  human  falli- 
bility for  a  thousand  years  has  given  a  false  meaning  to  a 
phrase,  the  new  theology  has  still  a  divine  right  to  throw 
out  the  false  meaning  and  restore  the  true.  The  truth 
has  no  statute  of  limitations.  The  truth  does  not  lose 
proprietorship  in  a  formula  because  falsehood  has  been 
an  unhindered  tenant  for  centuries. 

The  right  to  retain  the  old  words  is  inalienable.  What 
as  to  the  wisdom  ? 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  193 

There  can  be  no  greater  difference  between  the  old 
theology  and  the  new  than  there  was  between  the  Mosaic 
theology  and  the  Christian  theology.  As  we  have  seen, 
the  Christian  system  involved  the  complete  overthrow  of 
priesthood,  temple,  altar,  sacrifice  ;  the  whole  system  not 
only,  but  the  very  structure  of  Jewish  worship.  The 
clever  and  learned  Pharisees,  scribes,  doctors  of  the  law 
saw  this  clearly.  The  conservatives  of  that  day  and  city 
were  not  so  polite,  so  self-restrained,  so  moderate  as  our 
conservatives  at  Des  Moines  and  Springfield  and  Andover 
and  Minneapolis,  and  they  protested  against  the  new 
theology  to  the  point  of  mobs  and  scourge  and  crucifix- 
ion for  the  new  theologian  ;  and  all  the  while  to  their 
charges  he  constantly  protested  :  '^  Thinkest  thou  I  am 
come  to  destroy  the  law  and  the  prophets  ?  I  am  not 
come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill." 

How  could  he  honestly  say  that  ?  He  preached  a  re- 
ligion which  not  only  has  subverted,  but  which  was  in- 
tended to  subvert  the  whole  Jewish  ritual,  the  priests 
who  administered  it,  the  temple  in  which  it  was  per- 
formed. Must  there  not  rest  upon  all  minds  a  painful 
misgiving  that  Christ,  for  love  of  a  quiet  life  and  fear  of 
opposition,  may  have  forgotten  those  high  principles  of 
uprightness  which  Dr.  Dana  of  old  times  inculcated  upon 
Professor  Park,  and  which  Professor  Park  in  his  turn  en- 
joins upon  Professor  Smyth  ?  Does  not  Christ  incur  the 
suspicion  of  intellectual  fraud  in  putting  a  new  meaning 
into  the  old  words  ? 

But  Christ  saw  further,  deeper,  keener,  wider  than 
the  Pharisees,  and  he  spoke,  as  he  had  a  right  to  speak, 
from  his  own  broad  vision  and  not  from  their  narrow 
one.  They  saw  the  destruction  in  his  teachings,  but  not 
the  construction.  He  had  not  come  to  destroy  the  law. 
He  had  come  to  fulfill  the  very  object  for  which  the  law 
had  been  originally  established. 

13 


194:  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

It  is  true  that  this  fulfillment  involved  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  law,  but  this  destruction  was  not  the  object 
of  his  coming,  and,  still  more  and  vitally  to  the  purpose, 
it  was  not  such  destruction  as  the  Pharisees  apprehended, 
by  force  from  without,  but  a  gentle  dissolution  by  in- 
ward necessity — a  natural,  healthy,  and  painless  absorp- 
tion. The  object  of  the  law  was  to  establish  communi- 
cation between  man  and  his  Maker  for  his  own  upbuild- 
ing in  righteousness.  Christ  came  to  bring  a  more 
perfect  communication,-  and  the  more  perfect  must  in 
time  disestablish  the  less  perfect.  Man  had  built  a  hard 
and  even  a  hateful  and  cumbrous  way  to  God — a  way  of 
burnt-offerings  and  brutal  slaughter  and  costly  temple 
and  ceremonial  priest.  Christ  came  to  say  :  "I  am  the 
^ay" — the  way  of  love — that  potent  alembic  in  which 
rite  and  violence  and  selfishness  should  be  forever  dis- 
solved. Christ  destroyed  the  law  as  day  destroys  the 
dawn. 

The  great  apostles  wrought  in  the  same  spirit.  They 
did  not  tear  down  the  old  as  a  necessary  preparation  for 
building  the  new  on  a  mechanical  theory  of  ecclesias- 
ticism.  They  proceeded  on  the  spiritual  theory  and  de- 
veloped the  new  out  of  everything  that  was  eternal  in  the 
old  ;  and  not  only  on  the  old  of  the  Mosaic  law,  but  on 
the  old  of  the  pagan  nations  as  well.  Indeed,  it  was 
Paul's  boast  that  he  became  all  things  to  all  men.  Who- 
ever Avrote  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  employed  the  tac- 
tics of  infusing  the  Gospel  of  Christ  into  the  Hebrew  law. 
We  have  seen  that  he  did  not  preach,  "Abolish  your  priest- 
hood, throw  down  your  altars,  burn  your  temples,  they 
are  outgrown."  He  said:  "Christ  is  your  high  priest 
forever.  We  also  have  an  altar,  and  to  do  good  is  its  sac- 
rifice." He  did  not  scornfully  repudiate  the  centuries- 
old  covenant  of  Abraham,  so  dear  to  the  Jews,  calling  it 
a  clumsy  and  imperfect  make-shift.     He  directed  atten- 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  105 

tion  to  the  better  covenant  in  Christ ;  that  the  divine 
law  should  be  written  on  better  than  tables  of  stone— in 
their  minds  and  in  their  hearts. 

By  the  same  tactics,  when  Paul  was  giving  his  charge 
to  Timothy  there  was  an  utter  change  of  policy.  No 
beating  about  the  bush,  no  careful  deference  to  long  asso- 
ciations, no  cautious  verbal  manipulation.  He  went 
straight  and  swift  to  the  mark  :  "  There  is  one  mediator 
between  God  and  men— the  man  Christ  Jesus,  Blessed 
and  only  Potentate,  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords, 
who  only  hath  immortality."  We  have  not  a  word  about 
altar  or  sacrifice,  but  short,  sharp,  and  decisive  :  "  Let 
every  one  that  nameth  the  name  of  Christ  depart  from 
iniquity."  Paul  was  careful  of  his  beloved  son's  stomach 
and  he  was  careful  of  his  own  cloak ;  but  he  did  not  take 
the  smallest  pains  to  walk  softly  over  Timothy's  ecclesi- 
astical prejudices.  He  had  himself  educated  that  young 
man,  and  knew  that  he  had  no  right  to  have  any. 

But  when  he  left  his  well-beloved  Timothy  and  ad- 
dressed the  stranger  Athenians  he  was  again  all  suavity 
and  tact  and  consideration,  addressing  them  not  with 
Hebrew  metaphor  any  more  than  with  the  Timothean 
hrusquerie,  but  with  the  Greek  technique.  Just  as  he 
had  poured  his  gospel  into  Hebrew  forms  for  the  He- 
brews, so  now  he  poured  it  into  Greek  forms  at  Athens, 
knowing  that  the  forms  were  temporal  and  frangible,  but 
the  gospel  is  eternal.  As  he  had  talked  of  high  priest 
and  sacrifice  to  the  Jews,  he  now  talked  of  Zeus  and 
poetry  to  the  Greeks,  declaring  unto  them  not  the  God 
of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  whom  they  would  have 
perhaps  despised,  but  the  God  to  whom  their  own  altars 
were  erected  and  of  whom  their  own  poets  sung.  And, 
be  it  observed,  Paul  apparently  selected  the  only  one  of 
all  the  altars  of  Athens  that  could  be  upreared  to  the 
supreme  God.     It  required  a  robust  logic,  but  Paul  was 


196  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

equal  to  it.  I  greatly  fear  that  old  Orthodoxy  would  have 
thought  Paul  was  double-dealing,  and  I  am  not  sure  that 
Professor  Park  would  not  have  adjured  him  to  smj  that 
he  was  an  idolater  if  he  was  an  idolater ;  and  no  doubt 
Mr.  Voysey  would  have  cried  out  upon  the  "miserable 
subterfuge  "  if  he  had  been  on  Mars'  Hill  that  day.  But 
Paul  stoutly  asserted  and  maintained  his  right  to  speak 
his  own  way. 

From  our  day  prophet,  priest,  and  king  have  passed. 
The  words  have  no  living  meaning  for  us.  Even  with 
the  Eoman  Catholic  church,  priest,  altar,  sacrifice  are 
merely  symbolic.  No  smell  of  blood  is  found,  no  bleat- 
ing of  lambs  is  heard  in  a  Catholic  cathedral  any  more 
than  in  a  Protestant  meeting-house.  If  Paul  were 
preaching  to  us,  he  would  not  represent  Christ  as  a 
sacrifice.  He  would  say  to  us  as  to  Timothy  :  *'  Let 
every  one  that  nameth  the  name  of  Christ  depart  from 
iniquity." 

Therefore,  when  the  Andover  creed  orders  its  profess- 
ors to  declare  that  Christ,  as  our  redeemer,  executeth  the 
office  of  prophet,  priest,  and  king  ;  when  Professor  Park 
apportions  the  work  of  Christ  by  lot  to  the  various  func- 
tions of  the  Jewish  priesthood,  they  are  guilty  of — what  ? 
An  anachronism.  Nothing  more.  They  are  speaking  as 
old  Jews  instead  of  American  republicans.  They  are 
emphasizing  the  temporary,  the  already  vanished  part  of 
the  Hebrew  teaching  Now  that  the  Jewish  ritual  has 
for  us  completely  passed  away,  all  this  terminology  has 
for  us  only  a  historical,  not  a  vital  meaning.  We  have 
no  such  officer  as  prophet,  priest,  or  king.  All  these 
offices  were  merged  in  Christ  so  long  ago  that  the  words 
themselves  are  merely  literary.  Everything  on  that 
theme  was  said  centuries  ago,  when  Paul  faced  the  past 
with  a  gospel  which  was  to  supplant  them  all.  What 
needs  to  be  hammered  into  us  is  what  Paul  said,  front- 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  197 

ing  the  future  :  ''  Let  every  one  that  nameth  the  name 
of  Christ  depart  from  iniquity." 

But  the  literary  and  moral  sense  these  words  still 
have.  In  that  sense  they  are  wholly  true.  Nothing  has 
ever  put  into  them  a  single  element  of  falseness.  Every 
good  thing  which  prophet,  priest,  or  king  was  supposed 
to  do  or  actually  did  for  the  Hebrews,  that  Christ  came 
to  do  for  all  the  world..  If  I  were  to  frame  a  creed  I 
should  not  put  in  the  Hebraistic  clause,  but  I  could  sub- 
scribe to  the  Hebraistic  clause  in  any  creed  whatever. 

There  is  a  pretty  little  rhymed  theology  lisped  by  very 
little  folk — Frazeor,  and  Edward,  and  Meriel,  and  Char- 
lotte, and  Stan  wood  : 

"  Where  did  you  get  your  eyes  so  blue  ?  " 
"  Out  of  the  sky  as  I  came  through." 

As  a  scientific  biogenesis  this  Socratic  creed  may  leave 
something  to  be  desired  ;  but  it  expresses  the  Bible  truth — 
the  truth  which,  by  exclusion,  is  thus  far  the  established 
truth  of  science,  that  life  is  from  God  ;  and  it  teaches 
this  truth  to  the  child  by  a  pointed,  definite,  and  remem- 
ieraUe  statement. 

Nay,  further.  It  is  not  only  that  the  baby  soul  could 
know  nothing  of  hereditary  transmission,  but  the  scien- 
tist who  knows  all  that  man  knows  of  heredity  knows  no 
more  than  the  little  child,  where  did  you  get  your  eyes 
so  blue. 

From  your  father  ?  No,  the  father's  eyes  are  black. 
From  your  grandfather,  then  ?  No,  the  grandfather  re- 
tains his  own  eyes  blue  and  bright.  The  scientist  is  pro- 
foundly ignorant.  Heredity  is  but  ignorance  writ  large. 
The  sage  knows  no  more  than  baby  the  principle  on  which 
baby's  eyes  are  blue  and  baby's  brother's  eyes  are  black. 
It  is  only  that  so  the  Hidden  and  Absolute  Force  wrought 
it  out  in  the  eternal  order ;  and  so  the  baby  prattles  a 
great  truth  with  innocent  lips. 


198  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

We  should  not  frame  a  creed  saying  : 

I  believe  that  children  are  the  gift  of  God,  and  that 
the  blue  of  their  clear  eyes  is  painted  on  their  passage 
through  the  earth's  atmosphere.  But  if  the  little  chil- 
dren had  made  themselves  into  a  Christian  society  to 
help  each  other  to  be  kind  and  true,  I  could  with  good 
conscience  sign  even  such  a  creed.  I  could  sign  it  for 
substance  of  doctrine,  fully  believing  that  all  souls  are 
born  of  God  and  partake  of  the  divine  nature ;  and  I 
could  sign  it  for  scientific  truth  if  I  were  challenged. 
For,  as  the  human  body  is  demonstrably  composed  of 
ninety-five  parts  water  and  all  parts  earth,  and  as  the 
earth's  atmosphere  is  largely  composed  of  water,  it  must 
be  that  the  baby's  blue  eyes  are  gathered  from  the  earthy 
materials  and  chiefly  from  the  watery  atmosphere  of  the 
planet  on  which  it  lives  and  from  which  its  tiny  body  is 
composed  !  The  only  creed  one  could  not  sign  would  be 
a  creed  precluding  the  order  of  nature.  This  creed  would 
simply  give  the  order  of  nature,  the  divine  order,  under 
a  figure  which  the  childish  mind  could  follow.  There- 
fore, when  the  innocents  lift  their  sweet  voices  in  devout 
inquiry  :  "Where  did  you  get  your  eyes  so  blue  ?"  loud- 
est and  firmest  shall  ring  my  voice  with  theirs  in  confi- 
dent, and  I  may  say  defiant,  response  and  accord  :  "Out 
of  the  sky  as  I  came  through  ! " 

The  interpretation  of  the  creed  by  the  Andover  pro- 
fessors is  not  only  reasonable — Pauline,  Christian — it  is 
wholly  in  the  direction  toward  which  the  faces  of  the 
founders  were  turned.  In  rejecting  the  grosser,  the  more 
ignorant  interpretation,  they  are  but  treading  a  little  fur- 
ther the  same  path  which  the  founders  trod,  and  which 
has  been  trodden  by  every  intelligent  professor  since,  and 
by  the  whole  Christian  world  so  far  as  it  has  advanced  in 
spiritual  and  intellectual  life. 

A  single  example  will  give  ample  illustration.      The 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  I99 

creed  declares  that  the  wicked  at  their  death  will  '^with 
devils  be  plunged  into  the  lake  that  burneth  with  fire  and 
brimstone  forever  and  ever." 

The  founders  may  well  have  taken  this  literall3\ 
The  founders  of  Andover  were  not  disturbed  by  chem- 
istry, geology,  biology,  ethnology,  comparative  philology. 
They  "overset"  the  Greek  into  English  and  left  it  there. 
But  do  the  most  conservative  of  orthodoxy  to-day  believe 
that  brimstone  is  eternal  ;  that  oxygenation  can  be  applied 
to  soul  ;  that  spirit  can  be  subjected  to  the  combustion  of 
sulphur  ?  Do  they  believe  that  the  immaterial  soul  is 
wedded  to  the  chemical  change  of  matter  ?  Mr.  Samuel 
Jones  lately  and  greatly  scared  a  Boston  congregation 
with  a  story  of  the  Devil  chasing  a  lost  and  departing 
soul  around  a  woodpile  and  through  a  window — which  is 
in  line  with  a  part  of  the  Andover  creed,  but  it  is  impos- 
sible to  believe  that  the  Andover  complainants  would  join 
that  hunting.  Unless  they  would,  unless  they  consider  it 
possible  to  plunge  a  disembodied  soul  into  actual  burning 
brimstone,  they  have  no  ground  for  even  a  "friendly  law- 
suit" with  the  Andover  professors.  'No  member  of  an  or- 
thodox Congregational  church  who  dissolves  that  brim- 
stone in  rhetoric  can  refuse  to  the  Andover  professors  lib- 
erty to  put  a  rhetorical  cast  or  a  literary  interpretation 
upon  any  other  word  in  the  creed.  One  old  departure 
from  the  literal  rendering  carries  all  new  departures  with 
it.  There  is  no  tribunal  in  the  world  which  has  authority 
to  say,  Thus  far  shalt  thou  go  and  no  further  in  latitude 
of  interpretation. 

The  professional  agnostic  affirms  that  barbarians  in- 
serted the  text  in  the  creed,  that  hypocrites  teach  it  for 
money,  and  that  it  is  simply  a  lie.  This  disposition  of 
the  matter  has  the  merit  of  a  simplicity  so  primitive  as 
to  be  archaic.  The  moderate  and  reasonable  layman  and 
the  '^  liberal  "  clergyman   do  not  believe  in  the  literal 


200  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

brimstone,  yet  consider  that  the  trust  fund  by  which  the 
seminary  is  supported  demands  literal  brimstone,  and,  for 
the  sake  of  perfect  honesty  and  to  set  a  much-needed  good 
example,  think  it  would  be  better  to  give  up  the  be- 
quest than  to  let  the  slightest  suspicion  of  perversion  of 
funds  go  out  to  the  world  on  account  of  the  quality  of  the 
brimstone. 

These  views  are  not  more  superficial  than  is  to  be  ex- 
pected from  persons  who  are  able  to  give  only  a  swift 
glance  to  what  needs  a  close  inspection.  It  may  be  re- 
marked that  one  principle  of  the  moderate  layman  is 
fundamentally  wrong.  Avoidance  of  suspicion  is  not 
one  of  the  large  bases  of  action.  If  it  were,  the  rule  of 
a  man's  life  would  be  changed  from  the  certainty  of  his 
own  conscience  and  consciousness  to  the  shifting  con- 
jectures of  another  man's  ignorance.  It  would  make  the 
ship  sail  for  the  wind  and  not  for  port.  A  ship  heeds  the 
wind,  but  does  not  follow  it.  A  man  heeds  suspicion,  but 
is  not  dominated  by  it.  It  may  be  his  primal  duty  to  dis- 
regard it.  It  is  never  his  duty  to  do  one  wrong  thing 
in  order  to  avoid  the  suspicion  of  doing  another. 

Conservative  orthodoxy  under  stress  of  science  weakens 
a  little  and  puts  the  brimstone  into  a  rhetorical  figure, 
but  beyond  that  refuses  to  go.  It  gives  way  on  one 
word,  but  utterly  declines  to  permit  any  one  to  give  way 
on  another.  It  sees  that  science,  chemistry,  metaphys- 
ics, have  made  brimstone  not  only  impossible,  but  ridicu- 
lous as  a  corner-stone  of  theology  ;  but  forever  is  a  term 
of  another  world,  beyond  the  domain  of  science,  incapable 
of  proof  or  disproof,  and  on  that  it  makes  a  stand. 

Professor  Park  emphasizes  the  permanency  of  the  An- 
dover  creed  as  a  necessary  condition  of  the  original  com- 
promise by  which  it  was  adopted.  But  what  did  the 
founders  mean  by  "permanency"?  Their  constitution 
declared  in  1807  that  the  seminary  should  be  forever  con- 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.   201 

ducted  and  governed  in  conformity  to  certain  principles, 
one  of  which  was  the  Westminster  Catechism.  But  anon 
the  original  founders  learned  that  the  Hopkinsians  were 
about  to  establish  another  seminary  in  Newbury,  and 
with  a  great  deal  more  money,  which  money  the  Audo- 
verians  were  exceedingly  anxious  to  get  hold  of.  The 
Hopkinsians  were  just  as  sturdily  determined  to  keep 
hold  of  it  themselves.  Then  began  a  struggle  of  the 
giants.  Thirty-six  times  drove  Eliphalet  Pearsons  over 
the  hills  of  Andover  and  along  the  winding  roads  to 
Newbury  after  that  money.  Do  I  mean  to  insinuate  that 
he  was  mercenary  ?  Not  in  the  least.  I  would  have 
driven  over  with  him  the  whole  thirty-six  times  rather 
than  he  should  not  have  got  it — rather  than  have  seen 
one  starveling  seminary  pushing  a  feeble  growth  in  An- 
dover and  another  in  Newbury. 

The  perseverance  of  the  saints  prevailed,  but  it  pre- 
vailed by  a  compromise.  There  was  to  be  a  new  creed. 
The  catechism  was  to  be  mitigated  and  modified.  Is 
that  an  adamantine  permanency  ?  Is  that  an  emphatic 
forever  ? 

Even  this  permanency  did  not  endure.  Between  the 
years  1808  and  1826  the  professors  were  required  merely 
to  declare  their  belief  in  the  creed  without  reference  to 
the  catechism.  Between  1826  and  1839  they  were  re- 
quired to  declare  their  belief  in  the  creed,  loith  reference 
to  the  catechism.  In  1842  the  associate  professors  were 
not  required  to  declare  their  belief  in  anything  more  than 
the  catechism.  Their  "forever,"  it  will  thus  be  seen, 
was  of  but  a  year's  duration,  and  their  "permanency" 
had  a  way  of  skipping  like  lambs.  If  their  "forever" 
was  so  very  fleeting,  why  must  we  make  it  eternal  ?  What 
they  did,  we  must  assume  they  meant  to  do.  What  they 
did  was  to  strike  as  nearly  as  possible  an  average  on  which 
all  Christians  could  meet. 


202  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

"  The  Andover  statutes  expressly  forbid  the  retention 
in  office  of  any  professor  who  does  not  continue  to 
approve  himself  *a  man  of  sound  and  orthodox  prin- 
ciples of  divinity,  agreeably  to  the  system  of  evangelical 
doctrines  contained  ^>^  the  Westminster  Assemhhfs  Short- 
er Catechism.^  ^^  But  Dr.  Park  said  to  Dr.  Cod  man  that  he 
never  believed,  and  never  would  believe,  the  doctrine 
taught  in  No.  82  of  the  Assembly's  Catechism.  How 
could  they  let  in  Professor  Park  ? 

"  We  have  always  understood  the  visitors  to  hold," 
reply  the  authorities,  *^  that  any  deviations  from  the  exact 
letter  of  the  creed  which  did  not  impair  its  evangelical 
character  were  permissible,  and  that  it  was  because  Pro- 
fessor Park's  deviations  were  such  that  they  were  per- 
mitted. It  is  because  later  ones  do  not  seem  to  be  such 
that  they  are  objected  to." 

It  is  thus  seen  that  even  the  Professor  Park  orthodoxy 
does  not  demand  strict  adherence  to  the  letter  of  the 
creed,  but  only  to  sucli  letters  of  the  creed  as  itself  shall 
select.  It  permits  departure  from  brimstone  and  No.  82 — 
the  things  which  Professor  Park  has  been  educated  out  of, 
but  beyond  Professor  Park  it  is  a  breach  of  trust  to  pass. 

The  present  Andover  professors  are  only  doing  a  little 
more  of  the  same  work  which  their  predecessors  wrought 
powerfully  in  their  day.  They  not  only  permit  the 
revelation  of  geology  to  illuminate  the  revelation  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  but  they  are  studying  it  in  the 
light  of  heredity  and  history.  When  the  old  orthodoxy 
explains  that  fire  and  brimstone  mean  that  the  soul  of 
the  incorrigibly  wicked  will  be  as  exquisitely  tortured  as 
would  be  the  body  by  fire,  new  orthodoxy  sorrowfully 
admits  it,  but  remembers  that  the  sting  of  death  is  sin. 
The  soul  enslaved  through  all  its  life  by  sin,  the  soul 
that  has  persistently  violated  the  law,  disobeyed  the  order, 
destroyed  the  harmony  of  the  universe,  may,  in  the  re- 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  203 

vealing  light  of  death,  see  itself  so  clearly,  see  the  order 
of  heaven  so  clearly,  as  to  be  deyoured  with  shame  and 
self-contempt — a  shame  and  contempt  more  biting  and 
burning  than  the  matter-entangled  spirit  can  conceive. 
The  light  from  which  it  could  hide  behind  the  flesh  it 
can  not  avoid  when  the  flesh  is  laid  off.  Light  which  is  the 
life  of  the  healthy  eye  is  agony  to  the  diseased  eye.  But 
death  itself  is  to  be  swallowed  up  in  victory.  Is  it  not 
possible,  asks  the  larger  hope — not  seeing  the  way,  seeing 
only  perturbations  of  the  divine  harmony  which  seem 
to  mean  that  there  must  be  a  way,  because  the  divine 
harmony  can  not  be  perturbed — is  it  not  possible  that  this 
spiritual  shame  shall  presently  destroy  shameworthiness 
and  work  out  spiritual  purification  ? 

President  Park  emphasizes  the  difference  in  position 
of  the  respective  antagonists  by  declaring  that  he  only 
revolted  against  the  '^  summarily  expressed"  doctrines  of 
the  catechism,  whereas  President  Smyth  flies  out  from  the 
traces  on  those  doctrines  as  **  particularly  expressed  "  in 
the  creed.  His  statement  is  as  convincing  as  William  Lloyd 
Garrison's  avowal  of  fatherly  impartiality  when  he  used 
to  declare  to  his  boys  that  he  loved  all  his  children  alike — 
especially  Fanny  !  The  great  professor,  balancing  him- 
self a-tiptoe  on  his  slender  adverb  and  calling  aloud  to 
orthodoxy  and  heterodoxy  to  behold 

"  On  what  a  narrow  neck  of  land, 
'Twixt  two  unbounded  seas  /  stand  ! " 

seems  a  very  Blondin  of  acrobatic  theology.  But  we,  of  the 
weak  and  wicked  world— no  Blondins— need  a  firmer  foot- 
hold, and  such  foothold  the  founders  furnish  ur.  It  is 
by  no  second  thought,  or  strained  construction,  or  late 
discovery,  that  the  Andover  professors  hold  their  places. 
They  are  in  the  places  appointed  them  by  the  founders 
themselves.  They  are  there  by  a  principle  set  in  the 
solid  base  and  actual  substructure  of  the  creed.     That 


204  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

creed  oi^ens  with  a  declaration  whicli  not  only  justifies 
the  professors  in  holding  their  places,  but  which  imposes 
upon  them  the  obligation  to  hold  their  places  against  all 
such  efforts  to  destroy  their  incumbency ;  which  consti- 
tutes it  indeed  a  betrayal  of  trust,  a  dishonor  to  the 
founders  to  withdraw.  This  declaration  embodies  a  prin- 
ciple which  must  last  so  long  as  time  lasts,  and  can  only 
be  dismissed,  if  even  then,  by  the  wreck  of  matter  and 
the  crash  of  worlds. 

By  the  terms  of  the  creed,  "Every  professor  shall,  on 
the  day  of  his  inauguration,  publicly  make  and  subscribe 
a  solemn  declaration  of  his  faith  in  divine  revelation  and 
in  the  fundamental  and  distinguishing  doctrines  of  the 
Gospel  as  expressed  in  the  following  creed,  which  is  sup- 
ported by  the  infallible  revelation  which  God  constantly 
makes  of  himself  in  his  works  of  creation,  providence, 
and  redemption." 

This  principle  is  broader  and  deeper  than  any  item  of 
the  creed,  because  it  underlies  them  all.  It  is  the  rule 
by  which  every  one  of  them  is  to  be  tested.  It  is  the 
foundation  upon  which  they  must  all  stand. 

First  is  required — Faith  in  divine  revelation. 

Second — On  this  infallible  revelation  the  creed  stands. 
By  this  revelation  the  creed  is  supported.  Therefore  the 
creed  is  binding  just  so  far  as  this  revelation  binds  it,  and 
no  further.  The  reason  of  the  creed  is  in  its  harmony 
with  revelation.  If  in  any  point  it  diverges  from  revela- 
tion it  becomes  void,  by  the  will  and  provision  of  the 
founders. 

Third — This  infallible  revelation  is  not  a  completed 
thing,  a  fixed  quantity.  It  is  a  revelation  which  God  is 
"constantly"  making.  Therefore  it  is  a  progressive 
revelation.  Therefore  the  creed  must  change  to  con- 
form to  the  changing  revelation.  There  is  no  meaning 
to  the  word  constantly,  unless  it  means  this.     Language 


SPIRITUAL  UEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  205 

is  incapable  of  being  used  in  eyidence,  nnless  constantly 
is  a  word  of  process.  To  say  that  God  is  constantly 
making  a  revelation  of  himself,  and  yet  that  our  knowl- 
edge of  him  must  never  increase  and  our  belief  regarding 
him  must  never  change,  is  only  absurdity.  The  found- 
ers gave  the  creed,  which,  in  their  view,  formulated  the 
revelation  that  had  been  made  up  to  their  time  ;  but  they 
required  the  professors  to  swear  that  they  would  explain 
the  Scriptures  to  their  pupils  with  integrity  and  faithful- 
ness ^'according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give  we." 

And  in  full  vievv  of  this  lucid  oath,  pledging  the  teach- 
ers forever  to  an  extraordinary  generous  seeking  and  dif- 
fusing of  light,  Judge  Hoar  stands  up  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Massachusetts  and  likens  the  Andover  Seminary 
to  a  blind  asylum  whose  provisions  require  that  its 
teachers  should  be  always  blind  !  The  founders  may 
admit,  he  says,  that  light  is  a  blessing,  but  their  statutes 
forbid  the  professors  to  give  it  to  their  pupils  ! 

The  learned,  brilliant,  and  fascinating  judge  is  so 
captivated  by  the  humorous  possibilities  of  the  situation 
that  he  neglects  the  serious  side.  To  him  the  sturdy  re- 
sistance of  the  professors  seems  like  the  prolonged  struggle 
of  a  cat  against  her  captors.  His  feline  figure  suggests 
other  felicities,  for  he  brings  to  the  question  only  the 
antics  of  a  frolicsome  kitten  over  a  ball  of  twine.  He  is 
charmed  by  the  roll  and  the  snarl,  butt  and  rebutter,  and 
he  curvets  into  a  thousand  graceful  and  amusing  atti- 
tudes ;  but  on  the  real  and  abiding  issues  involved  he  has 
not  taken  the  trouble  to  give  himself  or  the  Supreme 
Court  any  more  enlightenment  than  the  kitten  has  on 
spherical  geometry  or  the  angles  of  incidence  and  reflec- 
tion. 

In  imposing  revelation  as  the  basis  of  the  creed,  and  in 
stipulating  a  recognition  that  God  is  ''constantly"  mak- 
ing this  revelation,  the  founders,  by  inevitable  implica- 


206  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

tion,  not  only  warrant,  but  impose,  constant  change  in 
the  creed  in  order  to  conform  to  every  fresh  revelation. 
This  is  no  new  doctrine.  This  is  no  new  departure. 
Augustine  says  the  same  thing  :  When  they  say  a  thing  is 
not  rightly  done  if  it  be  changed,  truth,  on  the  contrary, 
l^rotests  that  it  is  not  rightly  done  if  it  he  not  changed ; 
because,  in  both  cases,  it  will  be  rightly  done  if  the  dif- 
ference be  regulated  according  to  the  difference  in  the 
circumstances. 

Schopenhauer  alludes  to  the  same  inevitable  inherent 
advance  of  truth  when  he  says  '^she  enjoys  but  a  short 
time  of  trial  between  two  long  eras — in  the  first  of  which 
she  is  condemned  as  paradoxical ;  in  the  last,  despised  as 
trivial."  In  the  Bible  story  we  have  seen  that  the  notion 
of  blood  atonement  was  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  human 
mind  that  ages  upon  ages  could  not  dig  it  out.  The 
truth  that  there  could  be  any  remission  of  sins  without 
blood  was  condemned  by  the  world  as  impossible.  Finally 
came  Christ  himself,  the  well-beloved  Son  of  God — Em- 
manuel, God  with  us — preaching  the  doctrine  of  repeiit- 
ance  for  the  remission  of  sins — at-one-ment  without  blood, 
reconciliation  to  God  by  reformation  ;  and  that  doctrine 
has  so  supplanted  the  doctrine  of  blood  atonement  that 
repentance  atonement  seems  a  commonplace.  Christ  came 
into  the  world  just  to  teach  repentance  for  remission  of 
sin,  we  say — that  is  absurd  !  He  did  not  come  for  such 
a  little  thing  as  that.  As  Schopenhauer  says,  the  great 
truth  is  despised  as  trivial.  And  we  go  to  work  and  in- 
vent some  clumsy  and  impossible  mechanical  and  mer- 
cantile contract  between  the  Father  and  the  Son  to  make 
Christ's  mission  seem  worth  while. 

The  Andover  founders  specified  the  sources  whence 
revelation  might  be  expected,  so  that  there  can  be  no 
mistake  ;  and  these  sources  they  place  on  a  level  in  point 
of  authority. 


SPIRITUAL  HEAT  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MODE  OF  MOTION.  207 

Works  of  Creation  :  This  includes  every  possible  dis- 
covery of  truth  by  study  of  the  material  universe  till  time 
shall  be  no  more.  Whatever  light  shall  be  thrown  upon 
earth  or  stars  from  geology,  biology,  astronomy,  chemis- 
try, the  founders  welcome.  Whatever  illustrates  the  real 
mode  of  creation,  the  properties  of  matter,  they  accept. 
For  all  the  discoveries  and  utilities  of  steam,  electricity, 
the  story  of  the  rocks  apd  the  suns,  the  suggestions  of 
the  skeleton  and  the  embryo,  they  made  room,  only  ask- 
ing that  it  be  a  revelation  of  God— that  is,  truth.  No 
Darwin,  or  Huxley,  or  Tyndall,  past,  present,  or  future, 
can  ever  climb  outside  the  scope  of  those  Andover  found- 
ers, whom  we  in  our  shallow  arrogance  have  called  "  iron- 
bound,"  but  whose  principle,  inspired  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
is  as  flexile  as  life  itself.  It  may  well  be  that  they  did 
not  know — though  it  may  well  be  that  they  did  divine — 
the  full  scope  of  their  words,  but  ever  the  promised  re- 
ward of  them  who  speak  and  do  the  best  they  know,  is 
that  they  shall  follow  on  to  know  the  Lord. 

Eevelation  in  Providence  :  This  includes  the  whole 
history  of  humanity — language,  race,  growth,  migration, 
the  rise  and  fall  of  nations,  and  of  men,  from  the  first 
rude  trace  of  primeval  man  upon  the  earth  to  the  last  item 
in  the  morning  newspaper.  The  present  is  photograph- 
ing itself  to  the  student  with  a  minuteness  never  excelled. 
Into  the  past,  scientist,  antiquarian,  Egyptologist,  are 
searching  with  an  enthusiasm  constantly  increasing  under 
success,  and  a  success  ever  conquering  fresh  advantages. 
But  whatever  revelation  God  has  made  or  may  make  of 
himself  in  his  relations  to  men — through  flint  knife,  or 
exhumed  statue,  or  uncovered  tile,  or  deciphered  record, 
or  discovered  manuscript,  or  long-buried  city — the  found- 
ers of  Andover  Seminary  made  provision  for  it  all  in  the 
opening  sentence,  the  ground  plan  of  their  creed. 

Eevelation  of  Kedemption  brings  us  to  the  culmination 


208  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

of  all  revelation — in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord — the  Holy 
Spirit  of  prophecy  ;  the  immanent  Deity — God  with  us — 
Emmanuel.  The  written  word  remains.  No  addition  can 
be  made  to  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 
Therefore  the  reyelation  which  God  is  constantly  making 
of  himself  in  redemption  must  be  through  new  light 
thrown  on  the  Bible,  new  light  shining  upon  its  interpre- 
tation from  the  new  revelation  of  himself  through  his 
works  of  creation  and  providence,  through  science  and 
history.  For  this  also  the  founders  made  room  in  that 
profound  and  wonderful  opening  sentence  of  their  ^Mron- 
bound  "  creed — a  sentence  which  binds  them,  and  binds 
us,  not  with  iron,  but  with  the  elasticity  and  strength  of 
the  interstellar  ether  to  every  sphere  of  truth  that  shall 
swing  out  into  the  light  of  new  knowledge  henceforth  for 
evermore. 

For  the  Andover  professors  to  give  up  their  seminary 
would  be  to  give  up  the  inspiration  of  the  fathers  to  the 
limitations  of  the  sons  ;  would  be  to  relinquish  light  to 
darkness,  breadth  to  narrowness.  Heaven's  flash  of  radiance 
to  earth's  brooding  obscurity.  It  would  be  to  snatch  from 
the  founders  the  glory  of  their  crown,  to  hide  its  splendor 
beneath  the  debris  of  our  own  mechanisms.  The  obstruc- 
tionists may  succeed,  but  it  will  be  temporarily.  The 
Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  may  turn  their  faces 
from  the  light,  but  the  court  of  last  resort  is  not  even  in 
Massachusetts.  If  this  age  can  not  discern  Heaven's 
shining,  the  next  age  will.  It  is  better  to  fail  in  a  good 
cause  than  to  succeed  in  a  bad  one.  But  final  failure  is 
not.  Already,  beautiful  upon  the  mountains,  may  be 
seen  the  feet  of  Him  that  bringeth  good  tidings.  All 
the  air  is  alive  and  astir  with  the  breath  and  blossom  of 
spring. 


CIIAPTEFw  IX. 

THE   SECTAEIAN   ARGUMENT. 

Around  a  family  table,  tvhere  debale  is  always  in  order,  if 
sometimes  in  disorder— the  disorder  of  perfect  freedom— the  Sun- 
day luncheon  was  once  diversified  by  a  lively  discussion  of  the 
sermon  that  had  Just  been  preached  in  the  home  pulpit  by  a 
rather  distinguished  stranger.  From  this  especial  sermon  the  talk 
wandered  on  to  the  nature,  object,  and  origin  of  the  sermon  in 
general  and  its  place  in  the  Church,  and  thence  to  the  Church  and 
its  mission. 

An  hour  afterward  a  young  man  ivho  had  been  one  of  the  most 
interested  disputants  put  into  the  hands  of  another  and  an  equally 
interested  disputant  a  paper  containing  his  "  addenda  "  to  the  dis- 
cussion. Tliis  paper,  which  I  have  called  "  An  Argument  for  Episco- 
pacy,'' noivj^rinted  for  the  first  time,  and  the  following  paper,  ''An 
Argument  for  Co7igregationalism:'  pertineiit  to  the  same  occasion, 
were  ivritten  without  Jcnoicledge  each  of  the  other's  writing  Ihe 
second  paper  was  subsequently  prepared  for  publication.  The  first 
paper  I  have  not  had  the  courage  or  the  desire  to  alter,  even  so  far  as 
to  change  the  conversational  and  familiar  tone  belonging  to  its  pri- 
vate purpose.  It  was  but  incidentally  preserved,  and,  coming  to  light 
now,  is  presented  to  the  Bible  Class-all  of  whom  were  the  ivriters 
friends-as  a  personal  and  pertinent  incident,  which  they  will  be 
glad  to  learn;  an  unexpected  voice,  which  the  class  ivill 

»  Hold,  not  as  wise,  or  no,  or  out  of  place,  but  dear, 
Because  the  lijis  are  no  more  here:' 

The  young  man  was  not  by  profession  a  churchman.  From  a 
child  he  had  known  the  Holy  Scriptures,  had  devoutly  accepted  their 
doctrines,  and  had  faithfully  followed  their  precepts  in  a  ^ffl'll' 
As  son,  brother,  friend,  he  was  not  only  irreproachable,  but  altogether 
delightful.  In  every  intellectual  aspect  his  early  promise  was  al- 
U 


210  A  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

ready  rich  in  performance.  To  weakness,  to  suffering  of  every  soriy 
he  gave  quick,  enduring  sympathy,  prompt  and  efficient  succor. 
Brilliant,  ma7ily,  chivalrous,  elegant,  sought  at  club  and  banquet 
and  every  form  of  social  festivity  and  mental  contest,  discreet  and 
able  in  business,  with  great  aptitude  for  great  affairs,  yet  wise  and 
patient  in  the  smallest  details,  home  was  the  field  of  his  richest  and 
dearest  life. 

When  the  Bible  Class  began  to  be  talked  of,  he  promptly  and  gay- 
ly  announced,  "  /  shall  attend  !  " 

Before  the  Bible  Class  coidd  meet  he  had  vanished  from  our  be- 
wildered vision  ;  he  had  entered  upon  the  activities  of  the  spiritual 
world. 

To  him,  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  knight  of  the  new  time  ; 

To  him  whose  name  ivill  not  any  more  be  spoken  among  living 


men,  a  living  name  ; 

To  him  who  gathered  into  his  short   life  the  love  of  many  a 

lifetime  ; 

To 

WALKER  BLAINE, 
I  consecrate  his  own. 


REASONS  FOR   EPISCOPACY, 

I  WISH  to  set  myself  right  in  an  argument  which  I 
advanced,  and  I  prefer  to  put  it  in  writing.  What  I 
meant  to  say  is  this  : 

What  the  English  call  dissenting  churches,  sacrifice 
service  to  preaching.  This  is  a  wrongful  view  of  relig- 
ious worship,  if  not  of  religion  itself,  and  will  lead,  if  it 
has  not  already  led,  to  harm.  Your  position  is  that  if  a 
congregation  wish  preaching,  let  them  have  it ;  after  all, 
it  is  a  mere  form  and  can  make  little  difference.  It  is 
not  an  essential  thing — part  of  the  being,  existence,  life 
itself  of  religion.  I  do  not  think  it  is,  and  I  suppose 
all  people  who  are  religious,  no  matter  what  their  sect — 
all  people,  even,  who  may  be  disbelievers,  provided  they 
are  good  and  inclined  to  good  things  (which,  after  all, 
leaves  out  chiefly  the  criminal  classes) — are  agreed  as  to 


TUE   SECTARIAN   ARGUMENT.  g^ 

the  duty  of  man  ;  unite  in  believing  that  conduct  is  the 
greater  part  of  life  ;  that  to  work  toward  righteousness, 
to  lead  pure  and  upright  lives  by  rules  clearly  recognized, 
known  to  the  Christian  religion  and  easily  ascertained 
by  every  one  and  any  one,  is  the  way  rightly  to  attain 
the  three  fourths  of  life  which  constitutes  conduct.  Her- 
bert Spencer,  working  without  aid  of  Scripture,  studying 
solely  the  development  of  man  morally  and  mentally; 
Matthew  Arnold,  critically  examining  the  writings  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments — traveling  by  different  roads, 
will  find  the  same  end  to  their  journey.  This,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  perhaps  the  strongest  proof  of  the  truth  of 
Christianity  :  that  it  laid  down  moral  laws  and  essayed 
an  explanation  of  the  true  inwardness  of  life,  which  is 
satisfactory  and  satisfying  to  the  highest  form  of  modern 
critical  thought,  to  material  as  well  as  to  psychical  phi- 
losophy. That  is  why  a  gross  wrong  must  be  done,  and 
is  done,  when  a  man  in  the  pulpit  tries  to  prove  the  truth 
of  St.  John's  gospel  by  so  barren  and  unsatisfactory  an 
exegesis  as  we  heard  this  morning.  But  this  is  not  what 
I  desire  to  discuss. 

That  the  Congregationalist  and  Presbyterian  and  other 
churches,  which  have  no  established  form  of  worship  or 
formulated  prayer,  do  attach  great,  the  chief,  importance 
to  the  sermon,  it  is  unnecessary  to  demonstrate.  I  as- 
sume this,  but  it  is  abundantly  shown  by  the  way  in 
which  churches  ordinarily  conduct  their  '^settlement" 
of  a  minister.  The  various  candidates  appear  and  preach, 
the  call  is  extended,  and  the  minister  settled  chiefly  by 
reason  of  the  sermon  ;  as  a  rule,  churches  do  not  even 
hear  persons  whose  religious  views  on  essential  points  are 
not  in  harmony  with  the  professed  views  of  the  denomina- 
tion. Possibly  the  Methodists  differ,  for  there  a  minister 
is,  I  think,  assigned  by  the  bishop,  or  conference,  or 
somebody,  for  a  definite  term  of  years ;   but  in  modern 


212  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

practice  I  am  told  that  if  a  congregation  desires  the  min- 
ister to  remain,  and  the  minister  desires  to  stay  with  the 
congregation,  the  conference  ordinarily  conforms  to  their 
united  wish. 

A  stronger  argument  may  be  made  against  my  views 
by  the  assertion  that  the  very  same  practice  of  ordination 
prevails  in  the  Episcopal  church.  Possibly  it  does.  I 
do  not  know,  but  I  assume  that  it  does.  The  difference 
is  here.  Your  Congregationalist  church  in  all  outward 
matters  depends  for  the  beauty  and  satisfying  nature  of 
its  service  upon  the  minister.  This  so  far  as  adults  even 
are  concerned.  If  a  Canon  Farrar  brings  learning,  elo- 
quence, and  sim2:>licity  to  Hamilton  or  to  Augusta,  un- 
doubtedly his  gi'acious  prayers  and  earnest  and  eloquent 
sermons  will  do  great  good,  especially  the  sermons,  just 
as  they  now  do  great  good  in  his  own  church  ;  but  if  a 
man  is  settled  in  Augusta  or  in  Hamilton  whose  faulti- 
ness  of  logic  and  want  of  mental  tact  are  apparent  to  a 
large  part  of  his  auditors,  his  sermon  and  the  whole 
service  will  at  least  do  no  good  to  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  Episcopal  church,  his  capacity  for  doing 
harm,  to  say  the  least,  is  lessened.  To  use  Arnold's 
mathematics,  three  fourths  of  the  service  in  that  church 
is  contained  in  the  prayer-book  and  lessons — one  fourth 
in  the  discourse.  The  converse  proportion  seems  to  me 
true  in  the  other  churches. 

To  set  forth  certain  reasons  why  I  believe  that  more 
attention  to  service,  less  to  sermon,  is  better  :  People  pre- 
fer the  sermon  ;  why  ?  Because  of  wrong  thinking  ;  be- 
cause originally  dissent  arose  on  matters  of  doctrine,  and 
they  desired  an  exposition  of  doctrines  which  they  had 
come  to  regard  as  very  precious.  Scott's  David  Deans 
occurs  to  me,  and  the  type  of  the  Scotch  covenanters, 
running  through  his  books.  Next,  they  came  to  regard 
the  sermon  as  exceedingly  important,  because  they  were 


THE   SECTARIAN  ARGUMENT.  213 

taught  by  their  fathers  to  regard'it  thus  ;  and  then  the 
minister  also  began  to  be  regarded  as  something  very 
sacred.  The  early  Scotch  covenanters  just  mentioned 
did  not  invest  the  expositor  of  their  doctrine  with  a 
sacred  character.  He  was  the  mouth-piece  for  the  doc- 
trine dear  to  them,  employed  as  a  pleader,  an  advocate, 
because  polemically  learned,  just  as  a  lawyer  is  employed 
to  mend  a  title  or  defend-  a  suit ;  I  imagine  they  regarded 
him  as  little  more.  But  the  position  of  the  minister  in 
a  Protestant  dissenting  congregation  became  something 
far  higher.  It  would  be  a  subject  of  curious  study  to 
examine  historically  the  growth  of  the  New  England 
clergy  to  power  and  to  reverence ;  to  a  position  in  the 
view  of  their  congregation  far  greater  than  rector  or 
curate,  though  he  is  set  apart  and  consecrated  by  those 
on  whom  apostolic  succession  has  fallen  ;  to  a  position 
as  great  and  as  influential  as  the  priest  of  the  Romish 
church. 

For  the  reasons  why  I  think  men  are  wrong  in  making 
the  sermon— not  service— essential,  let  me  say,  first,  the 
great  need  of  the  Church  is  to  influence  the  young  to 
right  living.  If  the  Church  can  teach  the  youth  to  con- 
duct themselves  rightly,  to  think  honestly  and  justly,  can 
make  them  good  men  and  women,  it  has  accomplished  a 
great  deal.  All  that  Christ  required  of  the  young  ruler 
was  to  obey  the  ten  commandments,  and  it  was  only  upon 
the  youth's  earnest  protestation  that  he  had  done  so  from 
infancy,  and  that  this  did  not  satisfy  him,  that  he  was 
told  to  sell  all  that  he  had.  It  may  be  well  for  the  Church 
to  have  an  ideal  of  utter  self-abnegation,  but  it  will  only 
reach  it  by  the  practical  method  of  teaching  its  followers 
to  obey  the  decalogue.  Personally  I  have  been  at  church 
five  hundred  times,  to  guess  roughly.  I  began  going 
youno-  and  I  continued— at  school  and  college  compulso- 
rily,  and  now  rather  carelessly.     How  many  of  the  scr- 


214  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

mons  which  I  have  heard  or  which  were  preached  at  me 
do  I  remember  ?  The  ablest  men  in  the  Congregation- 
alist  denomination  thundered  twice  every  Sunday  from 
thirty  minutes  to  an  hour,  each  at  a  crowd  of  two  or 
three  hundred  school-boys.  How  much  did  any  of 
those  boys  remember  ?  I  have  heard  five  hundred  long 
prayers,  as  the  boys  at  school  called  them.  How  much 
do  I  remember  of  them  ?  How  much  did  I  understand  ? 
Only  enough  to  be  sure  that  never  once  have  I  heard  a 
prayer  as  beautiful  as  that  of  the  prayer-book  of  the 
Episcopal  church  ;  only  enough  to  know  that  not  one 
prayer  put  forth  what  I  rationally  might  desire  as  well 
as  does  that  beautiful  service.  Do  you  think  that  a  child 
or  boy  could  have  gone  to  hear  the  service  of  the  Church 
of  England  as  many  as  five  hundred  times  and  not  have 
borne  in  mind  forever  prayer  and  litany,  the  ten  com- 
mandments, the  two  which  "our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
saitb,"  which  Dean  Stanley  so  rightly  commends  the 
American  church  for  reading  each  Sunday  after  the 
other  ten  ?  The  strongest  associations  which  I  have  per- 
sonally are  connected  with  certain  old  hymns — not  the 
words,  perhaps,  but  the  tunes,  *^In  the  cross  of  Christ  I 
glory,"  for  instance.  Fairly  stating  the  case,  then,  which 
is  all  I  wish  to  do,  is  not  this  true  ?  The  strangely  bar- 
ren, hebdomadally  varying  character  of  the  service  of  the 
Protestant  church  leaves  little  or  no  impression  on  the 
mind  of  the  youth  ;  that  of  a  settled  form  where  worship 
is  made  predominant  does.  The  sermons  they  share  in 
common. 

Is  not  the  advantage  of  impression  and  association 
and  remembrance  in  after  life  with  the  church  which 
magnifies  service,  accentuates  worship,  at  the  expense  of 
homily  or  sermon  ? 

How  is  it  with  a  church  for  older  people  ?  I  take  the 
broad  ground  that  the  necessity  of  a  church,  the  work 


THE  SECTARIAN  ARGUMENT.  215 

which  a  church  is  called  upon  to  do,  is  to  strengthen 
men  in  habits  of  right  living,  in  worshiping  God  and 
keeping  his  commandments ;  and  that  this  is  best  done 
by  impressing  these  lessons.  If  the  simile  of  ^^  Except 
ye  become  as  a  little  child  "  means  anything  to  me  when 
I  reason  about  it,  it  means  that  I  must  be  as  free  from 
prejudice  or  taint  or  misconception  or  misconstruction 
as  a  little  child  ;  as  free  from  error  and  as  ready  to  learn. 
If  you  can  not  teach  a  child  the  truths  of  religion  and 
the  Bible,  the  comparison  is  worthless.  So  that,  after 
all,  the  essential  truths  of  Christianity  may  be  learned  in 
infancy  ;  and  can  not  be  better  learned,  but  possibly  may 
be  better  understood,  in  maturity.  The  work  of  the 
Church,  as  the  work  of  the  school,  must  be  done  among 
those  of  tender  years.  Reasoning  from  personal  experi- 
ence (in  this  instance  a  fair  method),  a  church  with  a 
beautiful  free  worship  which  impresses  itself  on  child- 
hood has  the  greater  chance  for  good.  The  seed  may 
fall  on  stony  places;  but  more  seed  falls.  I  do  not 
argue  in  favor  of  absolute  fixed  forms.  Language  may 
change,  and  if  the  prayer  for  deliverance  from  sudden 
death  has  acquired  a  new  and  wrong  meaning,  write 
"violent  death."  I  do  not  argue  against  extempora- 
neous prayer,  though  personally  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  prayer-book  is  comprehensive  enough  for  all  pe- 
titioners. But  I  do  vote  earnestly  in  favor  of  a  church 
which  emphasizes  the  worship  of  God,  and  which  gives 
to  worship,  in  the  sense  of  prayer  and  thanksgiving, 
the  chief  place. 


21G  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 


AN  ARGUMENT  FOR   CONGREGATIONALISM. 

While  we  were  discussing  in  the  Bible  Class  the  doc- 
trines and  the  dissensions  of  Presbyterians  and  Congrega- 
tionalists,  I  thought  I  discerned  a  light  in  some  faces  as 
of  triumph.  Indeed,  distinctly  in  my  hearing,  if  not  di- 
rectly addressed  to  my  hearing,  came  the  exultant  sub- 
tones  :  **  There  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  join  the  Episcopal 
church  and  find  rest." 

Perhaps  no  better  reply  can  be  given  than  the  one 
that  was  given  on  the  spot  by  a  steadfast  Presbyterian 
of  the  highest  rank  in  the  world  :  **  You  have  just  as 
questionable  doctrines  as  we,  only  you  let  them  alone  !" 
Certainly,  no  doctrine  of  any  sect  can  be  more  difficult  to 
prove  than  this,  for  instance,  which  was  established  as  an 
article  of  religion  by  the  bishops,  the  clergy,  and  the  laity 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States 
of  America,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1801,  and  is  bound 
up  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  to-day  : 

Christ  did  truly  rise  again  from  death  and  took  again 
his  body,  with  flesh,  bones,  and  all  things  appertaining 
to  the  perfection  of  man's  nature  ;  wherewith  he  ascended 
into  heaven,  and  there  sitteth  until  he  return  to  judge  all 
men  at  the  last  day. 

But  to  the  glory  of  the  Episcopal  church  let  it  be  re- 
membered that  she  also  is  a  church  militant.  Her  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  bristle  with  her  flags  of  ancient  war.  Within 
the  memory  of  men  not  yet  old,  her  right  and  left  grap- 
pled in  the  fierce  contest  of  utter  sincerity,  and.  Heaven 
be  praised  !  the  right  prevailed.  Men  who  were  then,  so 
to  speak,  on  trial  for  life,  occupy  now  posts  of  honor  on 
the  walls  of  her  Zion.  It  is  not  necessary  to  join  the 
Episcopal  church  to  secure  peace  ;  but  it  is  edifying  to 
observe  how,  in  the  past,  the  Episcopal  church  has  con- 
quered a  peace. 


THE   SECTARIAX  ARGUMENT.  217 

At  present,  however,  let  us  observe,  in  the  interests  of 
inter-churcli  comity  and  of  general  intelligence,  that 
the  questions  between  these  churches  are  chiefly  of  polity 
and  not  of  doctrine.  The  Congregationalist  by  convic- 
tion is  a  Congregationalist,  because  Congregationalism, 
considered  as  a  policy,  not  as  a  creed,  seems  to  combine 
in  the  happiest  proportions  individual  religious  freedom 
with  social  religious  organization. 

Congregationalism  is  sometimes  said  to  be  that  form 
of  ecclesiastical  government  which  is  most  nearly  allied 
to,  and  which  most  closely  harmonizes  with,  the  Republi- 
canism that  constitutes  our  national  political  government. 

This,  however,  is  hardly  demonstrable.  Congregation- 
alism is  modeled  upon  the  Southern  idea  of  a  confeder- 
acy, rather  than  upon  the  Northern  idea  of  a  nation.  In 
Congregationalism  all  power  inheres  in  the  congregation. 
Each  church  is  a  separate  and  independent  body,  con- 
ducting its  own  business  without  reference  to  any  higher 
body,  without  ultimate  appeal  beyond  itself ;  calling  coun- 
cils, but  only  for  decorum  ;  combining  with  other  churches 
in  a  conference,  but  only  for  conference ;  organizing  it- 
self with  others  in  a  national  council,  but  only  for  coun- 
sel. In  none  of  these  bodies  does  a  church  relinquish  a 
particle  of  its  self-government  to  any  other  body,  either 
in  respect  of  belief  or  action.  The  conference  may,  for 
difference  of  creed,  withdraw  fellowship  from  some 
church.  The  council  may,  for  lack  of  confidence,  refuse 
to  assist  at  the  installation  of  some  minister.  But  none 
the  less  does  the  particular  church  remain  a  Congrega- 
tional church,  organized  and  perfect  in  all  its  parts  ;  and 
none  the  less  may  a  church  insist  on  installing  and  retain- 
ing the  pastor  of  its  choice  without  forfeiting  its  claims 
to  be  a  Congregational  church.  All  that  it  forfeits  is  its 
place  in  the  association  of  Congregational  churches.  So 
far  as  they  are  concerned  it  is  independent,  but  so  far  as 


218  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

its  own  constitution  is  concerned  it  is  Congregational.  A 
church  may  at  any  moment  secede  from  any  conference, 
withdraw  its  representation  in  national  council,  refuse  to 
act  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of  a  local  council — and 
no  council,  local  or  national,  is  empowered  or  pretends  to 
do  more  than  advise — and  the  worst  and  most  that  can 
happen  is  that  it  may  cease  to  be  a  member  of  a  local  as- 
sociation and  become  an  independent  church.  It  in  no 
way  loses  its  entity  as  a  Congregational  church.  All  its 
organization  is  still  complete  within  itself.  Incorporation 
into  any  larger  body  is  purely  voluntary,  does  not  affect 
the  constitution  of  the  larger  body,  is  a  relation  which 
can  be  assumed  and  resigned  at  will.  The  departure  of 
any  church  does  not  organically  rend  the  body  from 
which  it  secedes.  The  advent  of  any  church  in  no  way 
constitutes  the  larger  body  an  organism.  A  conference 
or  a  council  is  but  a  voluntary  assembly  of  churches,  a 
congregation  of  congregations  present  by  representatives. 
A  church  is  but  a  voluntary  assembly  of  believers  united 
by  their  belief.  There  is  thus  no  Congregational  church, 
while  there  are  a  great  many  Congregational  churches. 
In  this,  therefore,  it  is  unlike  our  national  government, 
that  it  is,  in  any  combination,  but  a  collection  of  organ- 
isms of  equal  rank.  These  are  never,  like  the  States  of 
the  Union,  welded  into  one,  a  different  and  a  higher  body, 
the  nation.  The  Congregation alist  is  strictly  and  simply 
a  home  ruler. 

Mr.  Gladstone  speaks  of  the  church,  of  the  priesthood 
or  ministry,  of  the  sacraments,  as  the  established  machin- 
ery of  Christian  training,  as  the  wings  of  the  soul ;  but 
sometimes  the  machinery  becomes  too  heavy  for  the 
motor.  The  church  and  the  priesthood  and  the  sacra- 
ments shut  the  soul  away  from  God  rather  than  interpret 
God  to  the  soul.  The  wings  are  wooden  and  crush  the 
spirit  down  when  it  would  soar  toward  its  source. 


THE  SECTARIAN   ARGUMENT.  219 

Christ  established  no  church,  neither  Catholic  nor 
Congregational,  nor  any  church  between  the  two.  All 
ecclesiasticism  is  of  human  origin.  Christ  left  undisturbed 
all  the  mechanism  of  human  society — ecclesiastical,  politi- 
cal, domestic,  friendly.  More  than  that,  he  repeatedly  and 
j^ublicly  called  attention  to  the  fact.  He  protested  that 
he  did  not  come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets.  He 
preached  in  the  synagogues  already  built ;  he  entered  with 
ready  sympathy  into  the  social  festivities  to  which  he  was 
invited  ;  he  loyally  paid  tribute  to  the  rulers  under  whom 
he  found  himself ;  but  he  enunciated  princij^les  under 
whose  working  the  law  became  only  a  shadow  and  a  remi- 
niscence— synagogues  crumbled,  tyrants  fell,  festivals  were 
purified. 

Neither  one  church  nor  another,  therefore,  can  be  jus- 
tified in  claiming  to  be  the  original  Church  of  Christ. 
Congregationalism  finds  its  warrant — a  true  warrant — in 
the  promise  of  Christ :  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered 
together  in  my  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them. 
That  is  what  a  church  establishment  is  for — to  retain 
the  spirit  of  Christ  on  the  earth,  to  diffuse  the  spirit  of 
Christ  through  the  earth,  to  draw  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world  into  the  one  kingdom  of  our  Lord,  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven. 

We  have  the  assurance  of  Christ  that  no  comi^licated 
machinery  is  necessary,  no  Synod  or  Presbytery  or  Hie- 
rarchy, Episcopate  or  Bishopric,  or  See  or  sermon.  A 
church  is  the  simplest  possible  form  of  organization.  It 
is  only  to  be  on  the  spot.  It  is  only  to  come  together  in 
the  name  of  Christ,  and  Christ  will  be  there.  Every  little 
country  school-house  prayer-meeting,  every  pioneer  group 
gathering  itself  in  a  log  hut  on  the  outskirts  of  civiliza- 
tion, can  make  itself  into  a  church  complete  in  all  its 
parts,  because  the  only  condition  is  that  it  shall  assemble 
in  the  name  of  Christ— not  in  the  name  of  rivalry  or 


220  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

faction,  ambition  to  establish  its  own  sect,  or  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  other  minister,  or  determination  to  have  its 
own  way — but  in  the  name  of  Christ.  This  is  the  con- 
dition which  men  must  fulfill.  Christ  has  promised  to 
fulfill  the  other  condition.     He  will  be  present. 

The  name  of  Christ — name  which  is  above  every  name  ; 
name  in  which  lies  all  our  hope,  perfection  of  the  life 
that  now  is,  promise  of  the  life  that  is  to  come — how  many 
crimes  are  committed,  how  much  of  selfishness,  self-will, 
vulgarity,  and  vice  broods  under  that  holy  name  !  But 
there  is  none  other  name  given  under  Heaven  among  men 
whereby  we  can  be  saved,  and  upon  this  rock  must  the 
true  Church  be  built. 

Congregationalism  acknowledges  the  invisible  Christ 
as  the  only  church  foundation,  and  builds  upon  this  foun- 
dation no  visible  church  universal  after  the  fashion  of  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world,  but  recognizes  that  the  true 
church  universal  must  be  invisible  and  spiritual,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Any  warrant  for  Congregationalism  in  the  words  of 
Christ  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  an  imposition  of 
Congregationalism  upon  the  world  as  the  one  imperative 
divinely  ordained  church  government.  The  context  itself 
shows  that  Christ  did  not  in  the  text  command  or  found 
the  establishment  of  a  church,  for  he  recognized  a  church 
already  existing.  Before  giving  his  disciples  the  assur- 
ance of  his  presence  at  their  gatherings,  he  had  directed 
them  in  a  certain  contingency  to  tell  their  troubles  to  the 
Church.  Therefore,  a  church  must  have  been  already 
formed.  What  this  church  was,  or  on  what  principles 
organized,  we  are  not  told.  Probably  it  was  in  conform- 
ity with  Christ's  subsequent  assurance,  which  assurance 
itself  may  have  been  but  the  stronger  afiirmation  of  some 
previous  unrecorded  *' seed-thought,"  for  the  word  used 
and  translated  church  is  defined  to  mean  literally  congre- 


THE  SECTARIAN  ARGUMENT.  221 

gafion,  any  pitblic  assemUy,  It  may  mean,  and  has  some- 
times been  supposed  to  mean,  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim  on 
the  one  hand,  or  any  assembly  of  devout  men  on  the 
other. 

This  declaration  of  Christ — that  where  two  or  three 
are  gathered  together  in  the  name  of  Christ,  there  will 
Christ  be  in  the  midst — is  no  more  a  divine  ordering  of 
Congregationalism  as  the  .one  eujoined  Scriptural,  eccle- 
siastical polity,  than  is  that  other  declaration — Think  not 
that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  laiu  and  the  prophets  ;  I  am 
not  come  to  destroy,  hut  to  fulfill — an  enforcement  of  the 
perpetuity,  the  universal  binding  obligation  of  the  law  of 
Moses.  It  is  no  more  a  divine  ordering  of  Congregation- 
alism than  is  that  other  declaration  to  Peter,  Upon  this 
roch  loill  Ihuild  my  church,  a  divine  ordering  of  the  Eo- 
man  Catholic  church  as  the  one  only  true  church.  All 
such  interpretations  seem  equally  and  utterly  foreign  to 
the  true  interpretation  of  Christ's  life  and  teachings. 
"We  do  not  need  to  fall  back  upon  the  researches  of  learn- 
ing, though  they  show  us  earlier  manuscripts  in  which 
the  text  "upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church  "  is  not 
found.  Granting  the  full  text,  the  Roman  Catholic  in- 
ference is  only  a  little  harder  to  draw  than  the  Congre- 
gational inference.  Both  are  forced.  !N"either  follows  of 
its  own  accord. 

We  greatly  weaken  our  cause  when  we  found  it  on  any 
adventitious  circumstance,  on  any  isolated  text,  and  not 
on  natural,  eternal  principles.  We  who  worship  God  with 
simple  rites  are  too  apt  to  sneer  at  ceremonials  more  mi- 
nute and  numerous  than  oui  own  ;  but  all  ceremonial  is 
of  human  origin,  of  man's  device.  The  posturings  and 
vestments  of  the  Episcopal  church,  the  altar  and  incense 
of  the  Eoman  Catholic  church,  we  sometimes  picture  as 
un-Christlike — pompous,  worldly,  not  to  say  wicked  addi- 
tions to  the  simplicity,  corruptions  of  the  purity,  of  the 


222  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASa 

true  Church  of  Christ.  But  thej  are  not  necessarily 
wicked  or  wanton.  True,  Christ  ordained  no  miter 
or  chasuble,  cope  or  cassock,  but  neither  did  he  ordain 
the  chorister,  or  the  cushioned  pews,  or  the  silver  com- 
munion tankards  of  the  Congregational  churches.  I  sup- 
pose the  embroidered  robes  of  the  archbishop  are  more 
like  the  parted  garments  and  the  allotted  vesture  of  Cal- 
vary than  is  the  de  rigueur  black  coat  of  the  Congre- 
gational minister.  These  things  are  absolutely  human, 
matters  of  taste,  choice,  discretion,  adding  an  acquired 
sacredness  of  years  to  what  was  originally  in  some  cases 
but  commonplace  every-day  custom,  and  in  others  the 
hallowed  relic  of  an  outworn  and  discarded  faith.  They 
are  important  only  in  what  they  are  not.  They  are 
merely  interesting  in  what  they  are.  It  is  suggestive,  it 
is  even  thriUing,  to  reflect  that  in  looking  upon  what 
are  sometimes  uncivilly  called  the  mummeries  of  Eoman 
Catholic  worship  we  are  beholding  the  last  faint  and 
fading  traces  of  the  worship  of  vanished  peoples.  If 
early  Christians  gathered  into  Christianity  pagan  rites 
which  they  could  not  wholly  suppress,  if  they  strove 
steadfastly  to  empty  these  rites  of  the  old  errors  and  fill 
and  transfuse  them  with  the  new  truths,  who  can  say 
that  they  were  not  wise,  as  well  as  pious,  in  so  doing  ? 
Was  it  not  the  way  of  Moses  ?  Was  it  not  the  way  of  the 
apostles,  nay,  of  their  master  also  ?  If  those  new  truths 
are  in  time  devitalized  into  new  errors,  is  it  not  the  way 
of  the  world  ?  If,  on  the  other  hand,  these  ancient 
rites  are  quick  with  somewhat  that  answers  to  human 
need,  an  aid  to  devotion  and  reverence  ;  if  some  souls  are 
subdued  to  receptiveness,  quiescence,  submission  by  the 
solemn  ceremonial  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  and  the  Epis- 
copal churches,  so  that  the  bread  of  life  is  more  readily 
assimilated  thereby,  pure  and  devout  Congregationalism 
has  with  this  no  quarrel.     Congregationalism  denies  only 


THE  SECTARIAN   ARGUMENT.  223 

that  these  ai*e  divinely  ordained  to  the  divine  exclusion 
of  its  own  simpler  rites  and  common  garb. 

Thus,  also,  Congregationalism  recognizes  the  validity 
of  immersion  as  a  sign  of  adhesion  to  the  person  and 
teachings  of  Christ,  while  it  rejects  wholly  the  idea  that 
immersion  was  ordained  by  Christ,  that  the  sprinkling  of 
water  upon  the  forehead  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  not  an 
equally  valid  sign,  or  that  any  application  of  water  is 
more  than  the  mere  outward  token  of  inward  and  spirit- 
ual grace,  accepted  by  Christ,  and,  therefore,  out  of  love 
to  him,  adopted  by  his  Church,  but  not  enjoined  by  him 
as  an  indispensable  duty  or  an  incomprehensible  mys- 
tery. The  Congrcgationalist  no  more  believes  that  it  is 
necessary  to  be  plunged  into  a  tank  in  order  to  be  buried 
with  Christ  in  baptism  than  he  believes  a  cup  of  wine  to 
be  the  blood  of  Christ  because  he  said  at  the  last  supper  : 
This  is  my  blood.  He  believes  both  constructions  of 
Scripture  to  be  forced ;  obstructions  to  truth  and  not 
truth  itself. 

Congregationalism,  as  I  understand  it,  is  founded  on 
the  nature  of  man  as  trained  according  to  Scripture,  and 
marching  in  ecc\Gsiiistic\8m  pari  passu  with  its  march  in 
science,  in  politics,  and  in  the  common  arts  of  life.  Con- 
gregationalism, in  the  time  of  Christ,  and  in  our  own,  is 
in  some  sense  a  reaction  against  a  too  elaborate  and  tyran- 
nical organization,  a  return  to  nature  after  the  fatigues 
of  cumbrous  form.  The  Hebraism  of  Christ's  time  was 
an  intricacy  of  generations,  and  bound  upon  the  shoulders 
of  men  burdens  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  Christ,  not  with 
violence,  but  with  gentle  insinuation  of  truth,  unloosed 
those  heavy  burdens  and  let  the  oppressed  go  free.  AYhcn 
a  Jewish  preacher  was  to  be  installed  with  whatever  detail 
of  their  separating  ritual  and  sacerdotal  consecration,  one 
of  the  charges  to  the  pastor  was  :  ^^Take  thou  liberty  to 
teach  what  is  boui^d  and  what  is  loose."    Christ  formu- 


224  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

lated  no  argument  against  this  as  a  usurpation  of  divine 
power,  heaped  upon  it  no  denunciation,  but  to  the  little 
listening  group  of  unlettered  fishermen,  learning  of  him 
to  be  meek  and  lowly  in  heart,  he  said  quietly:  *' "Whatso- 
ever ye  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven,  and  what- 
soever ye  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."  It  was 
the  indirect  but  complete  annihilation  of  all  the  arro- 
gant pretensions  of  the  Jewish  Church — priest  and  rabbi. 
It  was  the  unfrocking  of  the  Jewish  clergy.  They  had 
become  an  absolute  hierarchy.  They  claimed  authority 
over  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  i:)ower  to  lay  down  its  law, 
to  open  and  to  close  its  doors.  All  this  Jesus  swept  aw^ay 
with  the  gentlest  breath  of  his  lips.  In  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  the  greatest  is  not  he  who  claims  the  most ;  but 
the  greatest  is  as  a  little  child.  You,  little  ones,  he  seems 
to  say  to  his  disciples,  you  ignorant  but  knowing  me,  you 
are  the  real  priesthood  of  my  spiritual  kingdom.  You, 
without  synagogue,  or  ritual,  or  birthright  of  Levi,  but 
taught  of  me,  you  are  the  ones  who  have  the  secret  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  Catholic  church,  founding  on 
this  its  claim  to  pronounce  absolution,  adopts  the  exact 
idea  which  Christ  indirectly  condemned  ;  builds  up  its 
close-fitting  and  far-reaching  organization  on  the  very 
plan  of  the  rejected  Jewish  priesthood.  Christ  denied 
to  any  hierarchy  the  control  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
making  it  the  vested  right  of  Peter  and  of  the  disciples, 
uneducated  fishermen,  unconsecrated  by  form  ;  the  vested 
right  of  any  two  or  three  who  should  be  gathered  to- 
gether in  his  name  ;  the  vested  right  of  any  congregation 
of  believers,  or,  indeed,  of  any  single  believer,  praying  to 
the  Father  in  Heaven. 

Congregationalism  thus  interposes  the  least  possible 
machinery  between  man  and  his  Maker.  The  constant 
tendency  of  mankind  is  to  sacrifice  unto  the  net  and 
burn  incense  to  the  drag — and  a  very  good  reason  the 


THE  SECTARIAN  ARGUMENT.  225 

prophet  gives— because  by  them  is  their  portion  fat  and 
their  meat  plenteous.  If,  in  addition  to  this,  the  net 
and  drag  are  made  aesthetic,  sonorous,  magnificent  with 
all  the  splendor  of  wealth  and  culture,  music,  art,  and 
architecture,  the  danger  of  remembering  the  net  alone 
and  forgetting  him  who  giyeth  all  is  greatly  increased. 
It  is  the  aim  of  Congregationalism  to  use  only  such  and 
so  much  netting  as  may  be  necessary  to  catch  men ;  so 
much  form  and  ceremony  as  may  be  necessary  to  the 
preservation  of  yalues,  to  the  dissemination  of  truth  ;  as 
much  as  is  hinted  at  in  the  words  and  deeds  of  Christ ; 
as  much  as  is  demanded  in  the  Pauline  requirement  that 
all  things  be  done  decently  and  in  order.  Congregation- 
alism would  have  no  organization  for  organization's  sake, 
but  only  so  much  as  shall  best  secure  the  preaching  and 
practicing  of  the  gospel.  It  sees  in  all  Christ's  teachings 
a  steadfast  tendency  against  the  machinery  of  the  Jewish 
church,  a  steadfast  endeavor  to  place  religion  upon  a  spir- 
itual and  practical  basis.  Humanity  is  constantly  asking : 
Shall  we  worship  the  Father  in  this  mountain  or  in  Jeru- 
salem ;  by  the  Greek,  or  the  Roman,  or  the  English,  or 
the  Presbyterian  church,  with  priest  or  minister,  with  a 
white  neck-tie  or  a  white  surplice  ?  And  Christ  ever  re- 
plies :  Neither  here  nor  there,  neither  in  one  church  nor 
another,  neither  with  robes  nor  bells,  nor  pulpit  nor 
order.  All  this  is  not  Christianity.  It  is  only  cus- 
tom, convenience — temporary,  incidental,  and  altogether 
changeable.  Real  worship  is  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  If 
the  elaborate  ecclesiasticisms  of  the  world  claim  that  they 
are  necessary  to  keep  alive  in  men  the  sense  of  divinity ; 
that  the  world  needs,  still,  machinery  even  if  it  tends  to 
superstition  ;  that  promulgation  of  the  gospel  must  be  by 
intricate  politics,  checks  and  definitions,  ranks  and  or- 
ders, changing  robes  and  sounding  services — wheels  within 
wheels  of  command  and  subordination — why  still  has 

15 


226  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Congregationalism  other  work  to  do  than  dispute  with 
them.  I  think  they  are  mistaken.  I  think  a  good  deal 
of  their  effectiveness  is  in  danger  of  becoming  sacrifice 
unto  the  net  and  burnt-incense  to  the  drag.  I  think  it 
is  sometimes  worshiping  and  serving  organization  more 
than  God.  I  think  that,  as  a  direct  result,  the  church 
which  is  the  furthest  removed  from  Congregationalism, 
which  is,  perhaps,  the  most  powerful,  compact,  complete 
organization  on  the  earth,  reveals  a  tendency  to  sacrifice 
principle  to  power ;  not  simply  by  the  fact  that  its  chil- 
dren commit  sin  against  its  teachings  as  Congregational 
sinners  do  against  the  teachings  of  their  creeds,  but  that 
it  throws  so  ample  a  shelter  of  ecclesiasticism  over  indi- 
vidual responsibility  that  it  sometimes  lulls  the  con- 
science to  stupor,  where  it  should,  instead,  sting  to  re- 
newing vigilance  and  vigor.  As  a  result,  side  by  side, 
hand  in  hand  with  its  Christian  doctrines,  its  saintly 
lives,  its  heavenly  charities,  go — not  as  in  other  churches, 
dishonored  and  dragged,  a  body  of  death,  but  unnoted, 
practices  which  a  freer  inward  development  under  a  less 
rigid  external  imposition  might  reveal  in  their  true  light, 
might  detach  and  destroy.  As  a  political  force,  as  an  ec- 
clesiastical principality,  as  a  kingdom  of  earth,  that  church 
might  thus  become  less  powerful,  but  by  the  Christ  stand- 
ard it  would  be  greater  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

In  all  time-movements  we  must  recognize  the  divine 
hand,  and  Congregationah'sts  bid  God-speed  to  those  who 
follow  the  Master,  even  though  they  follow  not  us,  even 
though  they  sometimes  double  and  turn  upon  us  ;  but 
much  of  enginery  seems  not  only  to  belong  to  and  to 
build  up  a  kingdom  of  earth,  rather  than  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  it  seems  also  to  have  a  tendency  to  conceal  the 
real  nature  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Christ,  leaving 
the  earth  as  a  person,  to  remain  forever  upon  it  as  a  pres- 
ence, as  the  Holy  Spirit,  emphasized  but  one  mode  of  evan- 


THE  SECTARIAN  ARGUMENT.  227 

gelization:  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel 
to  every  creature.    Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations." 

Whenever  an  idea  is  sent  fresh  into  the  world,  the 
tendency  is  for  it  to  stiffen  at  once  into  forms.  The  foot- 
fall of  Christ  had  hardly  ceased  upon  the  hills  of  Judca 
before  his  spiritual  church  was  loading  itself  down  with 
prescripts.  Reason  is  constantly  breaking  forth  into  revo- 
lution against  prescription,  and  is  no  sooner  free  than 
another  system  of  prescription  is  constructed.  It  is  the 
mission  of  Congregationalism  constantly  to  antagonize  this 
constant  tendency — not  to  malign  or  traduce  it,  but  to 
moderate  it  to  the  lowest  advantageous  point.  It  is  the  mis- 
sion of  Congregationalism  to  keep  as  close  as  possible  to  the 
Christ-idea.  When  the  rest  of  the  Avorld  is  swinging  its 
censer  and  broidering  its  garments  in  the  name  of  Christ, 
it  is  the  part  of  Congregationalism  to  remind  the  world, 
by  example,  indeed,  rather  than  by  precept,  that  this  is 
not  Christianity.  It  may  accompany  worship,  but  wor- 
ship is  other  than  this. 

Congregationalism  can  make  no  greater  mistake  than 
to  erect  its  simple  and  sensible  forms  into  as  rigid  a  frame- 
work as  that  which  incases,  and  sometimes  imprisons, 
other  churches.  As  formalists.  Congregation alists  are 
weak.  There  is  no  comparison  between  our  severe  serv- 
ices and  the  sonorous,  spectacular,  and  impressive  ritual 
of  what  are  called  the  historic  churches.  Our  strength  lies 
only  in  keeping  close  to  the  spirit  and  teachings  of  Christ. 
Art  and  science  and  culture  have  done  their  utmost  to 
produce  the  solemn  forms  of  a  thousand  years'  growth. 
We  can  have  no  hope  of  improving  on  that.  These 
churches  are  historic  because  they  have  cultivated  those 
qualities  of  human  nature,  love  of  beauty,  music,  senti- 
ment, which  answer  most  easily  to  cultivation.  Our 
church  has  been  relatively  inconspicuous  in  history  be- 
cause its  chief  appeal  is  to  the  reason,  upon  which  indolent 


228  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

human  nature  is  loath  to  rely,  from  whose  cultivation  it 
largely  shrinks.  Christ  makes  a  man  judge  for  himself. 
Man  greatly  prefers  to  put  upon  some  one  else  the  re- 
sponsibility of  judging  for  him.  The  history  of  Congre- 
gationalism is  a  history  of  new  departures.  It  began 
fresh,  pure,  strong  with  the  inspiring  words  of  Christ.  It 
has  begun  afresh  many  time?  since  under  the  bold  and 
lofty  impulse  of  clear  thought  and  holy  aspiration.  It  is 
continually  hardening  into  limits,  fixity,  death,  but  it 
rises  again  with  newness  of  life,  and  each  time  a  little 
higher,  with  a  little  more  life  than  before.  It  will  pre- 
vail only  with  the  prevalence  of  reason.  Believing  that 
mankind  is  on  the  road  from  tutelage  to  self-government, 
from  the  dominion  of  the  animal  to  the  dominion  of 
reason,  and  that  man  can  best  learn  to  use  his  reason  by 
using  it,  the  Congregationalist  takes  courage. 

It  will  readily  be  seen,  as  it  naturally  follows,  that 
while  other  churches  may,  in  seasons  of  torpor,  fall  back 
upon  the  embodied  truth  of  their  forms,  Congregational- 
ism, which  has  no  embodied  truth,  must  have  its  truth 
always  fluent  to  be  vital.  The  historic  churches  may  af- 
ford to  sleep,  strong  and  confident,  behind  their  barrier  of 
sentiment,  their  record  of  power,  their  store  of  litany  and 
liturgy  and  ritual,  feeling  that  the  wheels  are  still  turn- 
ing while  they  slumber.  But  Congregationalism  has  no 
such  barrier  against  the  steady  tide  of  advancing  thought ; 
has  no  such  substitute  for  the  steady  working  of  the  ran- 
somed and  regenerated  reason.  Unless  one  is  free-minded, 
active,  receptive,  with  the  windows  of  his  soul — be  they 
large  or  small — wide  open  to  the  rays  of  the  ever-rising 
sun  of  righteousness,  a  Congregational  church  is  no  place 
for  him.  Nothing  is  more  unattractive,  I  might  almost 
say  more  repulsive,  than  the'meager  formulas  of  Congrega- 
tional worship  in  the  hands  of  a  pastor  without  thought. 
If  one's  mind  has  touched  its  limits,  if  he  is  settled  im- 


THE  SECTARUN  ARGUMENT. 


229 


movably  on  any  creed  whatever,  if  he  pins  his  faith  to 
Scott,  or  Edwards,  or  Cahin,  or  Athanasius— to  any 
other  than  the  one  only  name  given  under  heaven  among 
men  whereby  we  can  be  saved— Congregationalism  is  not 
for  him.  Let  him  go  into  the  historic  churches,  and  slec}! 
on  there,  and  take  his  rest.  In  a  Congregational  church 
he  is  losing  all  the  good  of  their  beautiful  and  imposing 
ritual,  of  the  obedience  and  decorum  which  they  com- 
mand. He  is  missing  all  the  good  of  the  free  mental  play, 
the  untrammeled  spiritual  growth,  the  incessant  search 
for  truth,  the  development  of  the  whole  man  which  con- 
stitutes the  sole  "  reason  to  be  "  of  Congregationalism. 

Congregationalism  is  valuable  only  as  it  keeps  the 
human  reason  in  close,  sensitive,  loving  contact  with  the 
divine  reason.  In  constructing  houses  of  refuge  for  the 
repose  of  reason,  it  is  the  weakest  of  all  earth's  architects, 
building  but  booths,  always  slight,  sometimes  uncouth, 
which  every  wind  of  heaven  may  rock  and  rend. 

Nor  is  this  a  discourteous  reflection  upon  other 
churches.  That  would  be  as  foolish  as  un-Christian  and 
false.  Great  men  have  been  nurtured  in  them  all,  but 
is  not  greatness  always  Congregational  ?  Great  men  rise 
above  all  denominational  limits  and  appeal  to  the  great  con- 
gregation, to  the  universal  reason.  The  great  man  is,  I 
think,  never  great  as  a  churchman.  He  is  great  outside 
and  above  his  church.  Nay,  he  is  even  often  at  odds 
with  his  church.  Its  bonds  hang  loosely  on  him,  and 
they  who  are  held  together  only  by  bonds  fear  his  bold, 
free  flight.  His  constituency  ceases  to  be  denominational, 
ceases  to  be  ecclesiastical,  becomes  the  congregation  of 
believers  throughout  the  world,  whether  Jew,  or  Roman- 
ist, or  Calvinist,  or  Scientist — men  who  keep  bright  the 
lamp  of  thought,  feeding  its  perpetual  flame  from  that 
central  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into 
the  world. 


CHAPTEE  X. 

IKSPIKATION. 

Practically,  the  religious  light  which  all  except 
scholars  receive  from  study  is  light  thrown  from  the  pul- 
pit. The  pulpit  is  the  popular  chair  of  theology  in  the 
university  of  the  world.  Thence  we  are  taught  what  is 
the  revelation  of  God.  Therefore,  if  the  pulpit  is  wrong, 
the  error  is  wide-spread. 

And  the  pulpit  is  sometimes  wrong  !  So  wrong  that 
we  can  see  it.  The  pulpit  is  often  so  forcible  and  im- 
pressive in  the  presentation  of  error  that  this  presenta- 
tion furnishes  the  best  frame  for  truth.  A  clergyman 
may  state  so  concisely  what  you  ought  to  believe,  that 
for  the  first  time  you  perceive  at  a  glance  exactly  why 
you  do  not  believe  it — which  is  the  next  best  thing  to 
believing  it. 

Eighteen  centuries  bear  witness  to  the  thoroughness  of 
Gamaliel's  learning,  to  the  excellence  of  his  character,  to 
the  culture  of  his  spirit,  to  the  eminence  of  his  reputa- 
tion. He  was  a  powerful  leader  of  the  people  and  a  teacher 
so  impressive  that  his  most  celebrated  pupil,  a  man  whose 
name  and  fame  brighten  with  the  rolling  years,  character- 
izes his  instruction  as  in  "the  perfect  manner." 

Yet  his  teaching  was  wrong — so  wrong  that  this  very 
pupil,  his  brilliant  eulogist,  counted  himself  the  chief  of 
sinners  for  carrying  his  teacher's  instructions  into  prac- 
tice !    Is  it  not  possible  that  our  own  teachers,  learned 


INSPIRATION.  231 

doctors  of  the  divine  law,  eloquent  in  council,  had  in 
reputation  among  all  the  people,  teaching  according  to 
the  perfect  manner  of  the  law  of  the  Fathers,  zealous 
toward  God,  may  yet  sometimes  be  teaching  doctrines  as 
antagonistic  to  the  truth  as  were  those  of  Gamaliel,  which 
led  Paul  to  persecute  men  and  women  unto  the  death  ? 

The  existence  of  God  and  his  revelation  of  himself  to 
man  is  the  most  important,  the  most  practical,  the  most 
vital  of  all  religious,  perhaps  of  all  earthly  questions.  On 
this  point  of  all  points  we  not  only  welcomxC  but  crave 
light.  Dr.  Clark  expounds  the  nature  of  the  revelation 
of  God  to  man  under  the  figure  of  a  man  who  began  life 
by  floundering  in  the  mire,  wading  in  a  swamp  of  mys- 
tery, ignorance,  and  sin.  The  more  he  struggled  the 
more  he  mired.  Presently  he  felt  something  solid  be- 
neath his  feet.  It  was  God's  promise.  He  stood  on  this 
and  was  safe — until  the  rationalistic  craze  seized  him. 
Then  he  began  to  widen  his  foundations,  driving  in  for 
one  pile  '^reason,"  for  another  ^'  ethical  consciousness," 
for  another  '^  the  moral  fitness  of  things,"  and  for  another 
*^  God  mirrored  and  limited  in  human  conception."  Then 
the  structure  of  Christian  faith  was  carefully  moved  aside 
from  its  old  rock  base  and  made  to  rest  partly  on  a  divine 
and  partly  on  a  human  foundation. 

This  is  negatively  an  admirable,  and  even,  in  most  re- 
spects, an  exact,  statement  of  the  true  doctrine  of  inspira- 
tion ;  the  word  of  God  resting  on,  certified  by,  appealing 
to  man's  reason,  to  his  ethical  consciousness,  to  the  moral 
fitness  of  things— God  mirrored  but  limited  in  human 
conception. 

But  Dr.  Clark  names  it  only  to  reject  it.  After  a 
while  his  poor  man  found,  to  liis  horror,  that  the  pile 
work  was  not  firm  ;  that  his  vast  outlay  was  hopelessly 
sunk.  He  abandoned  his  whole  scheme,  and  found  no 
solidity  or  rest  until  he  rebuilt  ''his  faith  upon  a  child- 


232  A  WASHmGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

like  trust  in  every  word  of  God.  His  final,  fixed  belief 
was,  *  Forever,  0  Lord,  thy  word  is  settled  in  heaven.' " 

These  be  pious  words.  Would  it  be  flippant,  irrelig- 
ious to  say  that  they  only  tickle  the  ear  and  never  touch 
the  brain  ?  He  who  regards  the  meaning  of  words  and 
is  not  beguiled  by  their  sound,  reads  this  parable  with  a 
mistrust  that  deepens  into  certainty,  for  the  question  is 
not  of  heaven  but  of  earth.  We  admit  that  the  word  of 
the  Lord  is  settled  in  heaven.  What  we  wish  to  know  is, 
whether  there  is  any  settled  word  of  God  on  earth,  and 
what  and  where  it  is.  To  this  Dr.  Clark's  answer  is  no 
answer.  It  leaves  us  exactly  where  we  were.  To  coun* 
sel  a  *^ childlike  trust  in  every  word  of  God"  is  to  evade 
the  question  :  What  is  the  word  of  God  ?  and  it  is  no  less 
an  evasion,  and  it  is  all  the  more  a  snare,  because  it  is 
spoken  from  a  pulpit. 

What  is  the  ''  word  of  God  "  ?  The  Bible  ?  In  another 
city  sits  another  doctor  of  the  same  law,  equally  had  in 
reputation,  and  at  his  feet  are  gathered  a  group  question- 
ing him  as  to  the  proper  attitude  of  a  Christian  toward 
the  theatre,  to  whom  thus  answers  he  :  "  Our  conscience 
tells  us  not  to  go,  lest  at  the  very  least  we  violate  the 
command  to  abstain  from  all  appearance  of  evil."  In- 
stantly then  Dr.  Clark's  rock-base  begins  to  totter  and  we 
find  ourselves  flat  in  the  primeval  mud,  for  the  revised 
version  says  there  is  no  such  command ;  bids  only  to 
avoid  every  species  of  evil,  which  not  only  gives  us  no 
enlightenment  on  the  question  whether  the  theatre  is 
evil,  but  forces  us  to  ask  whether  '^ every  word  of  God" 
means  every  word  of  King  James's  translation  or  every 
word  of  the  revised  version.  Until  that  is  decided,  and 
because  it  is  to  be  decided,  and,  therefore,  after  it  is  de- 
cided, our  faith  rests  partly  on  a  divine  and  partly  on  a 
human  foundation.  Forever,  without  doubt,  the  word 
of  the  Lord  is  settled  in  heaven,  but  it  is  so  far  from  be- 


INSPIRATION.  233 

ing  settled  on  earth  that  all  the  churches  and  creeds  and 
sects  of  Christendom  have  come  into  court  for  the  pur- 
pose of  settling  it.  When  the  word  of  God  is  settled  on 
earth,  earth  will  be  earth  no  longer,  but  the  IIolj  City— 
the  New  Jerusalem. 

If  the  Christian  faith  rests  on  a  foundation  w^holly 
divine  it  must  be  communicated  at  first  hand  by  God  to 
every  human  being.  Every  man  must  receive  his  revela- 
tion fresh  from  God— through  no  human  or  earthly  or 
other  medium.  This,  I  believe,  is  what  the  Quakers 
teach,  and  their  lives  have  been  so  pure,  gentle,  benefi- 
cent, that  their  belief  has  a  good  deal  to  say  for  itself. 
Certainly  those  two  sons  of  thunder  against  human  op- 
pression, John  Boanerges  and  John  Grcenleaf  AVhittier, 
must  equally  be,  in  the  sweet,  unselfish,  manly  character 
common  to  both,  disciples  whom  Jesus  loves. 

But  those  of  us  who  are  not  Quakers  are  taught  from 
the  pulpit  that  the  revelation  is  not  made  to  ourselves, 
but  was  made  many  years  ago  to  a  few  men,  by  whom  it 
was  transmitted  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  Holy  men  of 
old,  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  spake,  but  they  spoke  in 
what  is  to  us  an  unknown  tongue.  Even  if  they  were 
inspired  by  a  divine  being  in  every  word  and  sentence, 
it  is  nothing  to  us.  We  can  not  understand  one  word  of 
it.  I  suppose  there  are  not  a  hundred  native  American 
men  and  not  ten  native  American  women  who  could  read 
a  single  word  of  what  Isaiah  the  prophet  himself  wrote, 
or  who  could  understand  a  single  word  if  they  had  over- 
heard the  whole  private  conversation  between  Job  and 
his  wife.  The  Hebrew  language  reveals  nothing  to  fifty 
millions  of  the  American  people.  We  have  to  depend 
upon  some  man  to  tell  us  what  the  letters  are — what  the 
words  mean.  Granting  that  God  revealed  facts  to  Sam- 
uel, no  one  claims  that  he  has  revealed  Samuel  to  us. 
Practically  the  nineteenth  century  has  no  revelation  un- 


234  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

less  it  has  one  partly  on  a  human  foundation.  That  hu- 
man foundation  is  the  translators  of  Greek  and  Hebrew. 
Our  revelation  is  by  hearsay.  It  depends  upon  the  fidel- 
ity, the  scholarship,  the  mental  rectitude  of  several  men 
in.  several  generations,  in  several  countries,  all  purely  hu- 
man, for  no  one  claims  that  King  James's  translators 
or  the  revised  versionists  were  inspired.  Alcuin  and  Lu- 
ther and  the  saints  of  the  revised  version  claimed  no  in- 
spiration outside  of  their  learning  and  their  devotion. 
They  were  lights  of  the  world,  but  all  worldly  lights  are 
liable  to  flicker  and  to  fail.  Acquainted  as  we  are  with 
Harvard  and  Yale  and  Andover  and  Oxford  and  Heidel- 
berg, it  must  be  admitted  that  the  human  part  of  the 
structure  of  Christian  faith  is  a  little  unsteady,  not  to 
say  rickety.  It  must  give  a  little  or  it  must  splinter. 
It  is  easy  to  preach  every  word  of  God  so  far  as  we  know 
it,  but  a  man  must  use  his  reason  in  order  to  know  which 
is  the  word  of  God  and  which  is  the  word  of  prejudice  or 
passion  or  ignorance.  Even  if  God  inspired  Matthew  to 
write  ''Baptize,"  he  can  not  have  inspired  one  man  to 
decide  that  it  means  always  to  go  under  the  water  and 
another  man  that  it  means  always  or  only  to  have  a  little 
water  sprinkled  on  the  forehead.  Practically,  therefore, 
we  American  republicans  know  no  more  what  is  meant 
than  if  the  word  had  not  been  inspired  at  all.  We  must 
use  our  own  reason  to  ascertain  which  and  what  it  means. 
Therefore  the  revelation  must  have  one  pile  of  reason  to 
rest  on  in  spite  of  Dr.  Clark.  If  he  teaches  us  truly  that 
every  word  of  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God,  then  either 
King  James's  translators  or  the  revised-version  clergy- 
men are  fighting  against  God ;  and  among  the  Septua- 
gint  and  Douay  and  Griesbach  and  Tischendorf,  and 
their  great  host,  we  need  a  supplementary  inspiration  to 
tell  us  which  of  all  these  pretenders  is  the  real  word  of 
God.     One  of  the  piles  under  our  structure  of  Christian 


INSPIRATION.  235 

faith  is  and  must  be  reason.  Even  then  the  structure  is 
not  so  firm  as  could  be  wished  ;  but  if  that  pile  be  taken 
away,  it  is  not  firm  at  all.     It  can  not  stand. 

Dr.  Foster  sees  the  difficulty,  and  to  the  people  gath- 
ered at  his  feet  would  fain  explain  it  away.  Not  less 
positive  and  categorical,  he  essays  a  limitation  and  prac- 
tical definition.  *^  The  Bible,"  he  says,  *Ms  tlie  word  of 
God  ;  does  not  simply  contain  it,  but  is  it.  It  is  inspired 
in  every  sentence,  and  in  every  word,  so  far  as  this  :  that 
it  is  so  constructed  under  the  control  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
as  to  convey  precisely  the  meaning  God  intended.  Not 
a  single  word  is  admitted  which  does  not  pass  the  scru- 
tiny of  the  divine  inspector  as  approved." 

This  sounds  not  only  pious,  but  rigidly  orthodox  ;  yet, 
under  scrutiny,  does  it  really  say  anything  ?  Does  it  in 
the  least  explain  inspiration  ?  Does  it  even  give  any 
practical  information  ?  Of  three  or  four  interpretations 
placed  upon  a  text,  where  is  the  umpire  who  shall  decide 
which  is  the  meaning  God  intended  to  convey  ?  And  to 
whom  does  he  intend  to  convey  it  ?  Where  is  deposited 
the  certificate  of  approval  from  the  divine  inspector  ? 
Does  God  intend  to  convey  to  the  Roman  Catholics  the 
doctrine  that  the  Apostle  Peter  was  the  rock  upon  which 
he  would  build  his  church,  and  to  the  Protestants  that 
that  rock  was  Christ  ?  If  he  does  not,  which  rendering 
has  received  the  warrant  of  the  divine  inspector  ?  The 
clergy  and  the  lawyers,  the  second  best  men  in  Massachu- 
setts, hung  and  pressed  to  death  twenty  of  the  first  best 
men  and  women,  their  superiors,  on  their  own  under- 
standing of  the  word  of  God  :  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a 
witch  to  live;  and  modern  learning  oversets  this  into: 
Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  get  her  living.  Did 
God  intend  to  convey  to  Cotton  Mather  the  mandate 
that  Eebecca  Nourse  should  be  hanged,  or  did  he  intend 
to  convey  to  the  nineteenth  century  the  idea  that  people 


236  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

should  not  earn  a  livelihood  by  practicing  sorcery  ?  With- 
out waiting  for  the  seal  of  divine  inspection,  we — unin- 
spired human  beings,  simply  by  studying  grammar,  geog- 
raphy and  aritlmietic,  metaphysics,  history  and  material 
science,  simply,  that  is,  by  the  ordinary  and  orderly  march 
of  the  human  reason — have  unanimously  rejected  the  first 
rendering  of  the  word  of  God.  If  we  adopt  the  second, 
do  we  not  put  God  in  the  unhandsome  and  debilitated 
attitude  of  not  giving  men  a  revelation  till  they  have 
found  things  out  for  themselves  ?  AVhile  the  intelligence 
and  virtue  of  the  Salem  community  were  struggling  in 
the  dark,  the  Supreme  Being  gave  no  sign  ;  but  when 
intelligence  has  cleared  for  itself  and  for  us  a  pathway 
of  comparative  light,  and  witchcraft  is  a  lost  art,  and 
misunderstanding  can  do  no  further  harm,  he  conveys  to 
us  his  precise  meaning  !  Is  that  like  a  God  ?  That  seems 
to  me  like  a  very  mean  and  malicious  man. 

Dr.  Foster  says  that  "the  absolute  infallibility  of  the 
Scriptures  will  soon  be  beyond  question  among  Christian 
thinkers,  and  the  only  questions  mooted  will  be  those  of 
interpretation."  That  is  a  wise,  not  to  say  Innocently 
wily  way  to  throw  heresy-hounds  oif  the  scent ;  but  is  it 
not  rather  a  verbal  than  a  real  distinction  ? 

What  is  the  odds  between  a  question  of  interpretation 
and  a  question  of  infallibility  ?  If  the  meaning  of  Scrip- 
tures is  impenetrable,  it  is  little  to  the  purpose  that  they 
are  infallible.  One  would  as  soon  be  hanged  by  an  inter- 
polation as  by  a  misunderstanding.  An  infallibility  se- 
curely hidden  in  the  text,  dormant  through  ages  of  his- 
tory, latent  while  interpretation  is  dealing  death  and 
disgrace  to  a  baffled  and  virtuous  world,  seems  hardly 
fitted  to   be  a  working  infallibility  for  fallible  human 


It  amounts  only  to  saying  :  The  teachings  of  the  Bible 
are  true,  but  w^e  do  not  know  what  they  are. 


INSPIRATION.  237 

What  we  want  is  a  theory  of  the  Bible  tliut  means 
something — a  theory  that  shall  make  the  Bible  mean 
something  to  ns  ! 

A  learned  and  venerable  doctor  of  the  law,  had  in 
reputation  among  all  the  people,  expounds  thus  after  the 
perfect  manner  of  the  law  of  the  fathers  :  **  The  Bible  is 
a  unit.  .  .  .  The  whole  or  nothing  is  the  word  of  God. 
A  revelation  supported  by  intermittent  authority,  in- 
spired in  patches  and  parentheses,  we  may  be  very  sure  is 
not  a  revelation  either  of  God  or  from  God.  Its  structure 
is  not  Godlike." 

"  There  are  three  that  bear  record  in  Heaven,  the  Fa- 
ther, the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  these  three  are 
one."  That  is  our  Bible,  which  our  ancestors  bequeathed, 
which  they  believed  in,  which  we  received.  But  the  re- 
vised version  leaves  this  out  altogether.  Is  the  revised 
version,  then,  rejecting  the  word  of  God  ?  Or  did  King 
James's  translators  put  in  the  words  of  men  as  the  words 
of  God  ?  How  are  we  to  know  ?  If  we  give  up  this  verse, 
as  the  revisionists  bid  us,  we  must  give  up  the  whole  Bi- 
ble, for  "the  whole  or  nothing  is  the  word  of  God."  If 
the  revisionists  are  right,  our  ancestral  Bible  was  inspired 
in  patches,  and  this  piece  between  patches  the  revisionists 
cut  out  and  threw  away,  and,  to  be  logical  and  theologi- 
cal, we  must  follow  suit  and  throw  the  whole  Bible  away  ! 

"The  Lord  gave  the  word  ;  great  was  the  company  of 
those  that  published  it."  So  ring  the  voices  of  Dr.  Rey- 
nolds and  his  host  at  Hamj^ton  Court,  singing  the  Psalms 
of  David,  but  the  translators  of  a  later  time  tune  their 
harps  to  another  key  :  "The  Lord  gave  the  word.  The 
women  that  publish  the  tidings  are  a  great  host."  Must 
we  throw  away  the  Bible  unless  that  great  host  of  women 
is  drawn  off  from  it.  It  looks  as  if  the  seventeenth- 
century  translators  thought  those  women  ought  not  to 
have  been  there,  and  simply  and  succinctly  translated 


238  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

them  out  of  sight,  without  regard  to  King  David's  hon- 
orable award,  without  the  slightest  conscientious  scruple 
concerning  fidelity  to  the  text.  But  time  rolled  on,  and 
women's  colleges  sprang  up,  and  women's  boards  were 
formed,  and  when  the  nineteenth-century  translators  sat 
down  to  their  task  it  was  thought  best  to  bring  the  wom- 
en back  again  where  they  belonged.  And  have  not  wom- 
en— it  is,  to  be  sure,  a  mere  side-issue — by  this  token  a 
special  and  prescriptive  right  to  expound  and  promulgate 
the  word  of  God,  being  celebrated  by  King  David  for  so 
doing  ? 

Can  it  be  said  that  the  translators  were  not  inspired, 
and  that  we  must  go  back  to  the  original  writers  for  the 
text  which  they  directly  received  from  Heaven  ?  Xot  only 
does  this  leave  the  great  majority  of  human  beings  with- 
out any  authoritative  revelation — since  we,  the  unlearned, 
can  not  read  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  originals — but  the 
learned  are  no  better  off  than  we,  for  they  differ  about  the 
original  text  as  widely  as  they  differ  about  the  transla- 
tions. There  does  not  exist  in  the  whole  world  a  Bible,  a 
unit,  a  whole,  of  which  we  can  say,  or  of  which  the  most 
learned  scriptural  scholar  can  say,  this  is  the  original, 
real,  undisputed  Bible,  given  by  God  to  man.  On  the 
contrary,  when  we  go  behind  the  translations  to  the  origi- 
nal book,  we  are  launched  on  a  whirlpool  of  contradic- 
tions, for  the  Bible,  through  many  centuries,  did  not  ex- 
ist as  a  unit.  The  dates  of  the  different  books  composing 
it  are  different,  distant,  and  doubtful.  The  number  of 
manuscripts  in  which  these  various  books  are  found  is 
uncounted.  Many  of  them  were  lost  before  our  litera- 
ture began.  The  variations  of  text  are  also  innumerable. 
If  the  Bible  is  in  every  part  and  parcel  the  Vv'ord  of  God 
— if  the  Bible  as  a  unit,  as  a  solid  body,  is  the  word  of 
God — of  which  no  part  can  be  lost  or  rejected  without 
losing  or  rejecting  the  whole,  then  are  we  of  all  men 


INSPIRATION.  239 

most  misevaWe,  for  in  the  lapse  of  ages  «"<i  f^J^^^"^ 
literary  and  scientific  culture  certainty  about  the  Biblo 
tezt  is  absolutely  unattainable.  'i'h%-''.d  of  God  ,s  m 
inextricable  confusion  and  God  has  left  himself  without 
witness  in  the  book  of  books. 

If  a  theory  of  inspiration  can  ho  formed  which  shall 
not  only  leave  us  our  Bible,  in  spite  of  all  debate  and 
discussion  about  the  text,  but  which  shall  cause  all  thi 
debate  and  discussion  to  bring  out  in  bolder  lines  and 
stronger  light  the  divine  origin  of  the  Bible  and  its  mar- 
velous adaptation  to  human  need  and  to  the  human  con- 
stitution, would  there  not  be  a  presumption  in  its  favor  ? 
No,  is  the  reply,  because  if  the  whole  Bible  is  not  the 
word  of  God,  whose  is  the  prerogative  to  sit  in  judgment 
for  us  and  tell  us  where  error  ends  and  truth  begins  ? 

The  answer  ought  to  be  easy  and  natural ;  the  preroga- 
tive is  our  own.     God  has  given  to  every  man  the  means 
to  do  it.    The  Logos,  the  logical  faculty,  Reason  is_  the 
true  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into 
the  world.     That  lisht,  faint  though  it  be,  is  a  true  spark 
kindled  from  the  divine  light  ineffable.    In  the  begmnmg 
was  the  Logos,  the  Reason,  and  Reason  was  God.     In 
R    son  is  light  and  that  hght  is  the  life  of  men.    By  the 
endowment  of  reason  is  the  life  of  man  raised  above  the 
ffe  of  beasts  and  akin  to  the  life  of  God    Professor  Phelp^ 
would  give  the  prerogative  to  sit  m  judgment  for  us  and 
tell  ns  what  the  word  of  God  is,  to  groups  of  men  in  re- 
mote times,  in  distant  nations-men  whom  we  call  Angus- 
tino    Calvin    WvolifE-great  men  in  their  day,  who  did 
g«:t  .tllJi  but  f ho  were  not  heirs  of  all  «ie  age 
that  have  poured  their  golden  treasure  into  our  cofieis 
men  who  make  it  impossible  to  receive  their  conclusions 
because  they  contradict  ea«h  other,  but  whose  unwearying 
work  helps  us  to  form  conclusions  of  onr  o^^n  J.^v. 
dinal  Newman  and  Cardinal  Manning  confer  the  pie- 


2J:0  ^  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

rogative  of  judging  revelation  upon  great  companies  of 
men  in  all  Christian  ages,  whom  they  call  the  Ohurcli, 
but  who  also  contradict  each  other  tooth  and  nail.  The 
one  group  brings  forward  as  proof  of  their  ministry,  '^  All 
scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,"  and  the  other, 
*'  On  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church,"  and  the  one  is 
just  as  pertinent  to  the  sufficiency  and  the  exclusiveness 
of  Biblical  authority  as  is  the  other  to  the  sufficiency  and 
the  exclusiveness  of  ecclesiastical  authority,  and  that  is 
not  at  all.  For  the  same  scripture  which  declares  its  own 
inspiration  declares  also  the  inspiration  of  reason.  The 
inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  understanding,  and 
the  rock  on  which  the  Church  was  built  was  no  man  but 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God.  The  Catholic  may  in- 
sist upon  the  narrowest  point  of  verbal  collocation,  and 
because  Peter  is  followed  by  this,  has  some  verbal  ground 
for  saying  that  Peter,  and  not  Christ,  is  the  rock  of  our 
salvation,  but  the  Protestant  has  no  canon  by  which  he 
can  dislodge  the  inspiration  of  his  own  reason  and  retain 
the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  for  the  Bible  itself  declares 
that  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  understanding. 
It  is  maintained  that  ^'  the  plain  Christian  believer 
feels  the  need  of  a  revelation  from  God  which  is  authori- 
tatively Godlike."  But  how  does  the  plain  Christian  be- 
liever know  what  is  Godlike  ?  In  no  way  but  by  his  own 
reason.  Are  we  then  to  assume  the  position  that  human 
reason  is  capable  of  judging  what  kind  of  revelation  men 
ought  to  have,  but  is  not  capable  of  judging  what  kind 
of  a  revelat'ion  men  have  received  ;  is  capable  of  defining 
beforehand  what  God  ought  to  do,  but  is  incapable  of  dis- 
cerning afterward  whether  he  has  done  it  or  not ;  is  ca- 
pable of  saying  authoritatively  and  outside  of  the  Bible 
what  is  Godlike,  but  is  not  to  be  trusted  to  say  what  is 
Godlike  within  the  Bible  ?  To  me  it  seems  more  modest 
and  reverent,  as  well  as  more  scientific,  to  study  the  rev- 


IMSPIRATION,  241 

elation  we  have  than  to  limn  the  revelation  we  ought  to 
have.  God  is  to  be  discovered,  not  simply  by  imagining 
what  he  ought  to  be,  but  by  seeking  what  lie  actually  is 
from  his  footsteps,  as  seen  in  the  worlds  of  matter,  of  ac- 
tion, and  of  spirit ;  for  all  worlds  are  his,  and  through  all 
worlds  he  reveals  himself. 

The  consequences  of  a  true  theory  of  the  Bible  do  not 
diminish  the  stress  of  truth  ;  but  there  are  no  consequences 
to  be  feared.  Men  apprehend  and  declare  that  if  the  Bi- 
ble only  contains  the  word  of  God,  and  is  not  in  every 
part  and  parcel  the  word  of  God,  the  inevitable  sequence 
will  be  *'that  the  major  part  of  the  Old  Testament,  to- 
day and  to  us,  has  no  more  moral  authority  than  the  Ve- 
das.  Whether  it  has  as  much,  what  means  has  the  unlet- 
tered mind  of  knowing  ?" 

It  has  at  least  the  means  of  reading  the  Vedas  and 
comparing  them  with  the  Scriptures. 

But  the  unlettered  mind  can  not  read  the  Yedas. 
Therein  lies  the  gist  of  the  argument.  The  Vedas  have 
never  had  sufficient  moral  impulsion  to  get  themselves 
translated  for  us,  and  transported  to  us,  and  transplanted 
in  us.  "We  know  practically,  religiously,  nothing  what- 
ever about  the  Vedas.  The  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  we  do  know,  although  the  work  is  just 
as  Oriental  as  the  Vedas.  From  being  the  sacred  books 
of  a  primitive  tribe,  of  a  small  province,  of  a  scattered 
and  homeless  race,  they  have  insinuated  themselves  into 
the  very  heart  and  life  and  control  of  the  widest  and 
highest  nineteenth-century  civilization,  the  most  power- 
ful and  practical  civilization  in  the  history  of  humanity. 
All  the  churches  of  Christendom  are  founded  on  them. 
All  the  politics  of  Christendom  are  amenable  to  them. 
All  the  character  of  Christendom  is  molded  by  them,  so 
far  as  moral  improvement  is  recognized.  The  unlettered 
mind  knows  nothing  about  the  Vedas,  and  it  knows  more 
16 


242  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

about  the  Bible  than  about  any  other  book  in  the  world. 
It  knows  that  the  Bible  has  more  moral  authority  than 
the  Vedas,  because  it  feels  and  recognizes  the  authority 
of  the  Bible,  and  does  not  know  the  Vedas,  although 
they  are  the  sacred  books  of  a  notably  intellectual  and 
metaphysical  people. 

What  the  world  needs  just  now  is  not  a  new  religion, 
but  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  old  religion. 
Church-of-Englandism  is  not  the  old  religion.  Roman- 
Catholicism  is  not  the  old  religion.  Congregationalism, 
Unitarianism,  Presbyterianism  is  not  the  old  religion. 
They  are  all  different  forms  of  paganism.  All  form  con- 
sidered as  religion  is  paganism.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
they  are  bad.  All  paganism  is  not  bad.  But  God  is  a 
spirit,  and  the  only  real  worship  of  him  is  in  spirit  and  in 
truth. 

Christianity  is  the  spiritual  truth  of  all  the  ages,  irre- 
spective of  all  forms,  distilled  from  all  sources,  forever 
vitalized  with  the  power  of  an  endless  life  in  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.  All  the  conflict  comes  from  taking  the  Church 
as  spiritual  authority,  instead  of  taking  the  authority  of 
one's  own  reason,  upon  the  words  of  Christ,  the  work  of 
God.  Everything  which  substitutes  authority  for  reason 
is  to  that  extent  paganism.  Reason  is  God's  own  revela- 
tion to  every  man.  He  may  use  his  reason  in  judging 
authority,  but  nothing  has  authority  except  so  far  as  it  is 
founded  on  reason. 

Mr.  Gladstone  but  falls  into  the  w^ay  of  error  when 
he  says  of  the  new  religion — Christianity  without  Christ — 
that  it  abolishes,  of  course,  the  whole  authority  of  Script- 
ure. Scripture  itself  has  no  authority  outside  itself — 
outside,  that  is,  of  its  own  reasonableness.  The  Scripture 
writers  never  hesitate  to  abolish  each  other's  authority. 
Isaiah  swept  away  the  ground  from  under  the  feet  of 
Moses.     Paul  withstood  Peter  to  the  face  because  he  was 


INSPIRATION.  243 

to  be  blamed.  Christ  in  so  many  words  affirmed  that  the 
great  Jewish  law-giver  had  compromised  with  sin  and 
framed  iniquity  into  a  law  which  was  not  the  upright  law 
of  the  beginning.  The  Bible  has  no  authority  except 
that  of  right  reason  in  the  reasoning  animal — man — and 
this  is  the  claim,  and  the  only  claim,  which  the  Bible 
itself  makes. 

Joseph  us  placed  the  legislation  and  the  statesmanship 
of  Moses  on  a  solid  rock  from  which  eighteen  centuries 
have  not  dislodged  it ;  have  but  confirmed  its  strength  as 
an  impregnable  basis : 

'^I  exhort  all  those  that  j^eruse  these  books  to  apply 
their  minds  to  God,  and  to  examine  the  mind  of  our 
legislator,  whether  he  hath  not  understood  his  nature  in 
a  manner  worthy  of  him ;  and  hath  not  ever  ascribed  to 
liim  such  operations  as  become  his  power  ;  and  hath  not 
preserved  his  writings  from  those  indecent  fables  which 
others  have  framed  ;  although  by  the  great  distance  of 
time  when  he  lived  he  might  have  securely  forged  such 
lies,  for  he  lived  two  thousand  years  ago,  at  which  vast 
distance  of  ages  the  poets  themselves  have  not  been  so 
hardy  as  to  fix  even  the  generations  of  their  gods,  much 
less  the  actions  of  their  men,  or  their  own  laws. 

"But  because  almost  all  our  constitution  depends  on 
the  wisdom  of  Moses,  our  legislator  .  .  .  the  reader  is  to 
know  that  Moses  deemed  it  exceeding  necessary  that  he 
who  should  conduct  liis  own  life  well,  and  give  laws  to 
others,  in  the  first  place,  should  consider  the  divine  na- 
ture ;  and  upon  the  contemplations  of  God's  operations, 
should  thereby  imitate  the  best  of  all  patterns,  so  far  as  it 
is  possible  for  human  nature  to  do,  and  to  endeavor  to 
follow  after  it ;  neither  could  the  legislator  himself  have 
a  right  mind  without  such  a  contemplation,  nor  would 
anything  he  should  write  tend  to  the  promotion  of  virtue 
in  his  readers  :  I  mean  unless  they  be  taught,  first  of  all. 


244  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

that  God  is  the  Father  and  Lord  of  all  things,  and  sees 
all  things,  and  that  thence  he  bestows  a  happy  life  upon 
those  that  follow  him,  but  plunges  such  as  do  not  walk 
in  the  paths  of  yirtue  into  inevitable  miseries.  Now, 
when  Moses  was  desirous  to  teach  this  lesson  to  his 
countrymen,  he  did  not  begin  the  establishment  of  his 
laws  after  the  same  manner  that  other  legislators  did — I 
mean,  upon  contracts  and  other  rights  between  one  man 
and  another — but  by  raising  their  minds  upward  to  re- 
gard God  and  his  creation  of  the  w^orld,  and  by  persuad- 
insf  them  that  we  men  are  the  most  excellent  of  the  creat- 
ures  of  God  upon  earth.  Now,  when  once  he  had  brought 
them  to  submit  to  religion,  he  easily  persuaded  them  to 
submit  in  all  other  things  ;  for  as  to  other  legislators, 
they  followed  fables,  and  by  their  discourses  transferred 
the  most  reproachful  of  human  vices  unto  the  gods,  and  so 
afforded  wicked  men  the  most  plausible  excuses  for  their 
crimes  ;  but  as  for  our  legislator,  when  he  had  once  dem- 
onstrated that  God  was  possessed  of  perfect  virtue,  he 
supposed  that  men  also  ought  to  strive  after  the  partici- 
pation of  it ;  and  on  those  who  did  not  so  think  and 
so  believe  he  inflicted  the  severest  punishments.  .  .  . 
There  is  nothing  therein  disagreeable  either  to  the  ma- 
jesty of  God  or  to  his  love  of  mankind." 

Thus  nobly  did  the  pious  Jew  apprehend  the  truth 
which  his  nation  was  elected  to  hold  and  declare  in  the 
beginning — God. 

What  is  the  claim  of  the  testimony  of  the  Bible  it- 
self ?  A  plenary,  literal,  mechanical  inspiration  is  the 
device  of  Scripture  commentators  ;  not  the  assertion  of 
the  Scripture  writers. 

All  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  but  also 
the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  understanding, 
and  whatever  of  divine  clings  herein  to  the  Bible  clings 
equally  to  man's  reason.     Holy  men  of  God  spake,  moved 


INSPIRATION.  245 

by  the  Holy  Ghost,  but  every  good  gift  is  from  above, 
from  the  Father  of  light,  and  therefore  evcrij  word  of 
truth  must  be  insj^ired  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  is  again 
and  again  delineated  by  Christ  as  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  the 
Comforter,  an  immanent  and  prevailing  Spirit.  The 
apostle  Paul  claimed  to  have  received  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  to  speak  with  tongues,  yet  affirmed  that  it  amounted 
to  nothing  if  he  had  not  love  ;  showing  that  whatever  of 
inspiration  he  had  in  writing  his  letters  was  less  than  the 
inspiration  of  love — which  is  common  to  all. 

Whatever  this  inspiration  is,  the  Old  and  the  Xew 
agree  that  it  is  universal.  It  is  promised  to  every  one  : 
All  thy  children  shall  be  taught  of  the  Lord.  Jeremiah 
had  a  very  short  way  to  find  out  what  was  the  word  of 
God.  The  land  was  full  of  pretended  prophets,  who 
were  deceiving  the  people  with  their  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord."  If  they  did  not  profit  the  people  they  were  not 
authoritative  !  Moses  warned  them  in  the  same  succinct 
way — if  a  prophet  arose  among  them  commanding  to 
forsake  God  and  go  after  false  gods,  he  was  no  prophet. 
The  test  of  the  Lord  is  to  hate  evil.  The  divine  authority 
of  the  Scriptures  is  by  the  Scripture  writers  based  upon 
their  righteousness.  So  much  of  truth  as  they  teach,  so 
much  are  they  inspired.  Scripture  appeals,  notwith- 
standing Dr.  Clark,  to  our  ethical  consciousness.  The 
historical  authority  of  Scripture  appeals  to  our  trained 
historical  consciousness.  And,  best  of  all,  to  those  whose 
historic  consciousness  is  little  trained  comes  the  assurance 
of  Christ  himself  :  If  any  man  will  do  God's  will  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine.  A  truth  well  comprehended  and 
confirmed  by  Pastor  Robinson,  the  father  and  founder  of 
New  England,  the  great  leader  of  Congregationalism  : 

'*  The  best  and  safest  way  is  to  get  true  and  sound 
conscience  of  things  certain  and  without  controversy. 
Such  a  person  God  will  direct  in  his  ways  so  far  and  cer- 


246  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

taiiilv  as  uot  to  miss  of  the  main  end — eternal  life  ;  and 
therewith  in  mercy  will  pardon  all  other  of  his  human 
aberrations." 

"Who  knoweth  with  how  little  God  can  and  doth 
save  many,  being  faithful  in  learning  what  they  can,  and 
in  observing  what  they  know  ?  " 

"  He  who  gets  this  general  grace,  to  have  his  heart  in- 
deed and  seriously  bent  upon  the  course  of  piety  toward 
God  and  innocency  toward  men,  the  Lord  will  not  so 
far  suffer  to  err  in  his  way  as  to  miss  of  heaven  in  the 
end,  notwithstanding  his  particular  aberrations  of  human 
frailty,  which  God  will  cover  under  the  veil  of  his  rich 
mercy  by  the  person's  sincere  faith  and  general  repent- 
ance." 

Do  the  right  and  you  will  know  the  doctrine,  whether 
it  be  of  God  or  of  man.  Moral  rectitude  is  the  safest 
guide  to  mental  accuracy.  Every  good  gift  and  every 
perfect  gift  is  from  above.  What  is  not  good,  what  is 
not  perfect,  is  not  from  above. 

That  loosening  of  the  moral  authority  of  the  major 
part  of  the  Old  Testament  to-day,  and  to  us,  which  is 
foreboded  as  the  result  of  not  considering  every  part  and 
parcel'of  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God,  is  a  loosening 
which  has  already  occurred  even  under  the  theory  that 
the  Bible  is  a  solid,  a  unit.  Orthodox  or  heretic,  we  no 
more  observe  the  Levitical  law  than  if  it  were  inculcated 
in  the  Vedas.  Why  is  it  more  dangerous  to  say  that  the 
Levitical  law  has  no  authority  for  us  than  it  is  for  us 
to  pay  no  heed  to  it  ?  Why  is  it  more  heretical  to  say 
that  a  law  is  obsolete,  than  it  is  constantly  to  disregard 
it  ?  The  most  conservative  and  orthodox  portion  of  the 
religious  world  has  done  precisely  what  it  is  striving  to 
prevent  the  advancing  regiment  of  the  religious  army 
from  doing  to-day  ;  it  has  rightly  divided  the  word  of 
God.     Eeverently  and  devoutly  studying  the  Scriptures, 


mspiRATiON.  247 

it  has  decided  and  taught  that  what  was  imperative 
and  elevating  for  the  Jews  is  inappropriate  and  retrogres- 
sive for  us.  It  takes  this  unit,  this  solid,  this  Bible, 
every  word  the  word  of  God,  and  it  says  of  one  part : 
This  is  the  ceremonial  law,  and  we  need  not  observe  it ; 
and  of  another  part :  This  is  moral  law,  and  it  is  binding 
on  us.  By  what  right,  on  whose  authority,  does  it  limit 
one  word  of  God  to  the.  Jews  of  Palestine,  and  spread, 
another  word  of  God  over  all  the  world  .^  By  right  of  its 
own  reason.  But  no  pretensions  of  heterodoxy  or  heresy 
can  be  more  radical  than  this.  Unless  a  clergyman  wor- 
ships God  with  a  candlestick  of  pure  gold,  six  branches 
coming  out  of  the  sides  of  it,  three  branches  of  the  can- 
dlestick out  of  the  one  side,  and  three  branches  of  the 
candlestick  out  of  the  other  side  ;  three  bowls  made  like 
unto  almonds,  with  a  knop  and  a  flower  in  one  branch, 
and  three  bowls  made  like  almonds  in  the  other  branch, 
with  a  knop  and  a  flower  ;  four  bowls  made  like  unto 
almonds,  with  their  knops  and  their  flowers,  a  knop 
under  two  branches  of  the  same,  and  a  knop  under  two 
branches  of  the  same,  and  a  knop  under  two  branches  of 
the  same,  according  to  the  six  branches  that  proceed  out 
of  the  candlestick,  their  knops  and  their  branches  of 
the  same,  all  of  it  one  beaten  work  of  pure  ?old,  there  is 
a  considerable  part  of  the  Old  Testament  which  has  with 
him  no  more  moral  authority  than  the  Vedas.  There  is, 
therefore,  now  no  condemnation  to  them  who  would 
bring  to  any  other  part  of  Scripture  as  devout  a  heart, 
as  close  a  scrutiny,  as  wise  a  discrimination,  as  all  clergy- 
men have  brought  to  the  law  of  the  Lord  delivered  to 
Moses  upon  the  mount  of  Sinai. 

The  word  of  God  in  Genesis  sa3^s  that  Israel  bowed 
himself  upon  the  bed's  head.  The  word  of  God  in  He- 
brews says  Jacob  worshiped  leaning  upon  the  top  of  his 
staff.     Alford  renders  out  the  leaning,  and  says   that 


248  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

Jacob  worshiped  upon  the  top  of  his  staff.  The  Vulgate 
still  further  takes  out  upon,  and  says  that  Jacob  wor- 
shiped the  top  of  his  staff.  The  learned  Dean  says  it  was 
Jacob's  own  staff  upon  which  he  leaned.  Dr.  Taylor  says 
it  was  Joseph's  staff.  Professor  Thayer  says  that  Jacob 
did  not  worship  at  all,  but  simply  paid  homage  to  Joseph 
after  the  Egyptian  fashion,  as  a  high  officer  of  state. 
Every  word  the  word  of  God  ?  Whose— Thayer's  or  Al- 
ford's,  the  Vulgate  or  the  Septuagint,  Genesis  or  He- 
brews ? 

Is  not  this  staff  of  Israel  a  very  bruised  reed  to  lean 
on  ?  If  the  true  principle  is  that  the  Bible  is  a  solid,  a 
unit,  every  word  the  word  of  God,  and  that  we  can  not 
throw  away  one  part  without  throwing  away  all — then 
we  must  give  up  the  Bible  with  its  legacy  of  love  and 
truth  and  comfort  and  hope,  with  all  its  sacredness  of 
generations,  because  the  vowel  points  were  not  invented 
in  season  for  the  Septuagint  translators  to  know  whether 
the  word  was  liamittali — bed,  or  liamatteh — staff  ;  because 
M.  Chabas  was  not  born  soon  enough  to  tell  King  James's 
translators  that  bowing  one's  self  on  the  superior's  staff 
of  office  was  an  ordinary  Egyptian  mode  of  recognizing 
the  superior's  authority.  Must  we  sink  in  the  troublous 
ocean  of  life,  unbuoyed,  unsustained  by  the  word  of  God 
unless  we  have  the  head  of  Jacob's  bed  to  float  on  ? 

But  to  some  minds  any  other  theory  involves  absurd- 
ity. **That  he  has  given  to  a  lost  world  a  book  inspired 
here  and  not  inspired  there,  historic  now  and  mythic  then, 
blundering  sometimes  and  by  hap  right  at  other  times, 
and  that  he  has  left  it  to  man's  infirm  intuitions  to  di- 
vine whether  it  is  oracular  anywhere  is  absurd.  It  is  not 
like  God  to  build  such  a  rickety  structure." 

But  to  me  it  seems  exactly  like  God.  What  can  be  a 
more  rickety  structure  than  this  world  which  he  has 
made  ?    Doubtless  to  its  creator's  eye  it  goes  on  its  stately 


INSPIRATION.  24:9 

course  undisturbed  in  eternal  order,  but  to  us  who  live  in 
it,  what  ricketiness  !  It  is  shaken  by  earthquakes,  it  is 
pierced  by  lightnings,  it  is  swept  by  cyclones.  The  sea 
plucks  at  the  land.  The  land  slips  under  the  sea.  The 
rivers  ravage  the  meadows.  Vineyards  are  overwhelmed 
by  volcanoes.  Man  is  born  upon  earth  and  he  can  not 
emigrate  to  another  planet.  Fastened  to  this,  he  is  yet 
preyed  upon  by  fire  and  water,  and  bug  and  beast.  And 
what  a  rickety  structure  is  man  himself  ! — complicate  and 
wonderful  in  design,  but  so  imperfectly  completed,  so  ill- 
adapted  to  his  surroundings,  that  multitudes  perish  be- 
fore the  journey  of  life  is  fairly  begun,  and  multitudes 
more  sink  by  the  wayside  from  pain  and  weariness.  Of  all 
the  millions  born,  so  rickety  is  the  world-construction 
that  the  number  is  infinitesimal  who  pass,  without  pain 
or  trouble,  through  well-rounded  days  to  the  full  comple- 
ment of  their  years,  and  enter  heaven  gently,  from  glory 
to  glory.  It  is  such  a  rickety  world,  such  a  piece  of  dam- 
aged goods,  a  machine  so  out  of  gearing,  that  science 
agrees  with  theology  in  calling  it  "a  hurt  world,  a  lost 
world."  If  the  structure  of  inspiration  given  by  God  is 
to  correspond  to  the  structure  of  the  world  made  by  God, 
it  must  have  one  pervading  and  prevailing  principle  of 
life,  a  continuous  and  upward  line  of  movement ;  but 
it  must  be  very  rickety  in  that  part  of  its  construction 
which  comes  within  human  experience. 

This  absurd  book  is  exactly  what  has  been  given  us — 
a  book  inspired  here  and  not  inspired  there.  **I  com- 
mand," says  Paul ;  ''  not  I,  but  the  Lord."  And  soon  after 
he  adds,  "^  The  rest  speak  I,  not  the  Lord  " — a  specific  dec- 
laration that  his  word  is  inspired  here  and  not  inspired 
there.  '*  Historic  now  and  mythic  then."  Certainly. 
David  was  undoubtedly  the  historic  king  in  Jerusalem. 
The  tempter  of  Eve  was  as  undoubtedly  a  mythic  snake. 
So  the  Bible  itself  tells  us  hundreds  of  years  afterward. 


250  A  WAsnmGTON  bible  class. 

for  the  serpent  which  coils  itself  into  the  first  book  as  a 
beast  of  the  field  is  cast  out  of  the  last  as  Satan,  which  de- 
ceiveth  the  whole  world.  *'  Blundering  sometimes,  and 
by  hap  right  at  other  times."  Yes,  Peter  was  right  when 
he  pronounced,  '^Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God,"  and  he  received  the  solemn  confirmation, 
''Upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church."  But  he 
blundered  straightway  in  contradicting  Jesus,  and  was 
instantly  and  unflinchingly  rebuked.  "Get  thee  behind 
me,  Satan.   .   .  .Tliou  art  an  offense  unto  me." 

What  is  ''infallibility"?  What  is  "authority"? 
What  is  "  inspiration  "  ?  Is  not  a  stress  often  laid  upon 
the  words  which  is  wholly  unwarranted  ?  Suppose  we 
admit — leaving  aside  all  questions  of  text  and  translation 
— that  the  whole  Bible,  as  a  unit,  is  inspired  and  infal- 
lible ;  do  we  mean  that  Abraham  was  directed  by  God  to 
offer  up  his  son  Isaac,  or  that  Moses  was  directed  by  God 
to  tell  the  story  ?  Suppose  both,  what  of  it  ?  Suppose 
the  book  of  Genesis  to  be  infallible,  what  of  it  ?  To 
whom  does  it  give  authority  to  do  what  ?  Suppose  the 
book  of  Exodus  to  be  inspired,  infallible,  and  authorita- 
tive in  every  part  and  parcel,  what  of  it  ?  Assuming  that 
God  did  direct  the  Jewish  master  to  bring  his  faithful 
servant  to  the  door-post,  and  bore  his  ear  through  with 
an  awl,  no  American  master  is  authorized  to  do  the  same. 
To  a  bad  servant  he  would  sometimes  like  to  do  it,  but 
the  law  would  not  allow  it.  The  servant  would  not  per- 
mit it.  Suppose  Matthew  was  divinely  inspired  to  nar- 
rate the  story  of  the  tribute-money  found  in  the  fish,  we 
are  not  ordered  to  pay  our  taxes  by  such  recourse.  There 
is  hardly  a  word  in  the  Old  Testament,  there  are  not  many 
words  in  the  New  Testament,  directly  addressed  to  us. 
Most  of  both  is  narrative,  directions,  sermons,  songs,  re- 
monstrances, arguments — all  with  a  strong  personal  bear- 
ing upon  men  who  have  been  dead  for  generations.     The 


INSPIRATION.  251 

stress  of  these  instructions  lias  quietly  lapsed  witl^  the 
lapse  of  time,  with  the  change  of  institutions.  Whether 
God  told  the  Scripture  writers  in  so  many  words  what 
to  say,  or  whether  their  inspiration  was  through  genius, 
enthusiasm,  love  to  God,  love  to  man,  spiritual  uplifting, 
just  the  same  have  we  all — Professor  Phelps  and  Professor 
Park,  Andover,  and  Bangor,  and  Princeton,  and  Wash- 
ington, and  all  the  pulpits.  Congregational,  Baptist, 
Episcopal,  Unitarian — taken  liberties  with  it,  taken  leave 
to  say  what  part  we  would  accept  and  what  part  we  would 
reject,  what  part  we  would  practice  and  what  part  we 
would  discard.  God  said  :  Eemember  the  Sabbath  day 
to  keep  it  holy,  but  Dr.  Douglas  practically  says  :  Not  so, 
Lord,  I  will  remember  the  Sunday  to  keep  it  holy.  God 
says  :  The  garments  which  the  priests  shall  wear  are  a 
breastplate,  and  ephod,  and  a  robe,  and  a  broidered  coat, 
and  a  miter,  and  a  girdle ;  but  the  most  conservative 
clergyman  prefers  a  plain  clerical  suit,  even  when  he  ad- 
dresses us  upon  the  necessity  of  having  a  theory  of  in- 
spiration '^  loliich  mahes  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures 
imperative  !  " 

Inculcating  the  necessity  of  the  literal  verbal  plenary 
inspiration  of  the  Bible,  orthodoxy  makes  merry — gently 
— over  Starr  King's  attempted  explanation  of  inspira- 
tion :  *^'  It  is — hm — it  is  a  kind  of  mental  uplifting ;  it 
is  an  illumination  ;  it  is — well,  it  is  an  inspiration  of 
the  whole  man."  We  must  have  something  better  than 
this,  protests  orthodoxy.  "We  must  have  the  doctrine 
in  a  bold  and  decisive  form,"  v/hich  *^ plain  men"  can 
use.  And  for  Mr.  King's  glittering  and  sounding  gener- 
alities it  substitutes  something  which  must  "make  the 
Bible  resonant  with  the  very  voice  of  God.  It  must  be 
something  which  tlie  soul  can  hear  in  the  far  distance, 
when  conscious  of  estrangement  from  its  Maker.  It  must 
give  visions  of  truth  which  men  can  see  in  the  dark." 


252  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

This  is  lofty  and  admirable.  I  think  it  is  also  true.  My 
theory  of  inspiration  does  all  this.  But  it  seems  to  leave 
as  much  to  the  imagination  as  did  Starr  Kiug's  defini- 
tion. A  theory  that  gives  visions  of  truth  Avhich  men 
can  see  in  the  dark  is  certainly  and  markedly  a  theory  of 
*Mllumination."  *' Plain  men"  will  find  no  more  diffi- 
culty in  grasping  the  theory  of  a  "mental  uplifting" 
than  a  theory  "which  the  soul  can  hear  in  the  far  dis- 
tance." 

But,  says  the  fearsome  saint,  "a  theory  of  inspiration, 
of  which  the  final  outcome  is  that  Moses  contradicted 
Christ,  that  the  imprecations  of  David  conflict  with  the 
epistles  of  John,  and  that  St.  Paul  could  not  even  repeat 
himself  correctly,  abrogates  all  claim  of  the  Scriptures  to 
imperative  and  divine  authority.  God  has  not  thus  con- 
tradicted God." 

No,  but  it  is  not  the  theory  that  causes  the  contra- 
dictions. The  coctradictions  cause  the  theory  !  The 
contradictions  are  there.  What  we  want  is  a  theory  that 
shall  take  them  in  without  throwing  the  Bible  away. 
God  has  not  contradicted  God,  therefore  there  are  no  con- 
tradictions, says  the  old  philosophy.  God  has  not  con- 
tradicted God,  therefore  the  contradictions  are  not  of 
God,  says  the  new  philosoi^hy.  One  might  as  well  deny 
day  and  night  as  deny  the  contradictions.  "  Thou  shalt 
cause  a  bullock  to  be  brought  before  the  tabernacle  of  the 
congregation,"  says  the  Lord  through  Moses,  "and  thou 
shalt  kill  tlie  bullock  before  the  Lord,  by  the  door  of  the 
tabernacle  of  the  congregation.  And  thou  shalt  take  of 
the  blood  of  the  bullock,  and  put  it  upon  the  horns  of 
the  altar  with  thy  finger,  and  pour  all  the  blood  beside 
the  bottom  of  the  altar  ...  it  is  a  sin  offering."  Speak- 
ing through  Isaiah,  God  says,  with  every  mark  of  disgust, 
"I  delight  not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks.  Who  hath  re- 
quired this  at  your  hand  ?  Bring  no  more  vain  oblations !" 


INSPIRATION.  253 

"He  shall  burn  a  perpetual  incense  before  the  Lord 
throughout  your  generations,"  says  God  in  Exodus.  "  In- 
cense is  an  abomination  unto  me,"  says  God  in  Isaiah. 

The  service  of  the  Lord  in  the  Chronicles  required  the 
Levites  to  offer  all  burnt  sacrifices  unto  the  Lord  in  the 
Sabbaths,  in  the  new  moons,  and  on  the  set  feasts,  contin- 
ually before  the  Lord.  But  in  Isaiah  the  Lord  said  :  *'  The 
new  moons  and  Sabbaths  I  can  not  away  w'ith  !  Your 
new  moons  and  your  appointed  feasts  my  soul  hateth." 

'*  Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  ?  "  asked 
the  Pharisees,  tempting  Christ. 

*'  What  did  Moses  command  you  ?  "  he  replied,  warily. 

"Moses  suffered  to  put  her  away,"  they  said. 

"For  the  hardness  of  your  heart,"  answered  Jesus, 
"he  wrote  you  this  precept.  But  from  the  beginning  of 
the  creation  God  made  them  male  and  female.  What, 
therefore,  God  hath  joined  together,  let  no  man  put 
asunder." 

Can  contradiction  be  sharper  ?  Does  not  our  Lord 
apparently  summon  Moses  for  the  very  purpose  of  con- 
tradicting him  ?  Is  it  any  theory  about  inspiration  that 
makes  these  contradictions  ?  Is  there  any  theory  in  earth 
or  heaven  that  can  make  them  anything  but  contradic- 
tions ?  Must  we  throw  away  the  Bible  because  Moses  and 
Isaiah  contradict  each  other,  or  throw  away  our  own  rea- 
son by  asserting  that  they  do  not  contradict  each  other  ? 
Never  !  Neither  !  But  with  the  golden  thread  of  truth 
and  righteousness  running  unbroken  through  both,  and 
by  aid  of  these  very  contradictions  showing  the  develop- 
ment of  human  reason  under  the  cherishing  light  of  the 
divine  reason,  let  us  weave  a  theory  of  inspiration  which 
shall  fit  the  facts  of  earth,  and  to  that  extent  at  least 
must  be  the  inspiration  of  heaven. 

But  such  a  theory,  says  theology,  would  give  us  a  vol- 
ume which  it  is  not  "like  man  to  interpret  truthfully. 


254  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

The  uncultured  mind  can  not  solve  the  riddle  of  such  a 
book."  Yet  even  on  the  rigid  old  solid  unit  theory,  the 
Bible  has  not  been  truthfully  interpreted.  The  uncultured 
and  the  cultured  mind  have  alike  failed  to  solve  its  riddles. 
It  was  because  they  looked  upon  the  Bible  as  a  unit,  solid, 
inelastic,  without  perspective,  inspired  everywhere  alike, 
never  contradicting  itself,  oracular  everywhere,  that  men 
hanged  witches.  Slavery  in  the  Southern  States  planted 
itself  flatfooted  on  the  law  of  Moses,  and  stood  there. 
Polygamy  transplants  the  institutions  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  and  Jacob  into  modern  Christendom,  and  breathes 
out  threatenings  and  slaughter  against  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
There  is  hardly  an  evil  institution,  hardly  an  evil  deed 
under  the  sun,  which  the  Bible  does  not  buttress  if  the 
Bible  is  to  be  taken  at  the  foot  of  the  letter,  solid,  square 
to  scientific  statement,  a  formula,  like  the  multiplication 
table. 

Any  other  than  this  solid  unit  theory  is  spoken  of  as  a 
new  theory,  a  new  departure.  But  there  is  nothing  new 
about  it.  It  is  the  oldest  theory  there  is.  It  is  as  old  as 
the  Bible. 

New  England  theology  especially  has  no  right  to  call 
it  new. 

Pastor  Robinson,  in  whom  all  Congregationalists  live 
and  move  and  have  their  ecclesiastical  being,  renounced 
for  himself  and  for  his  followers  all  attachment  to  any 
mere  human  systems  or  expositions  of  Scriptures,  reserved 
an  entire  and  eternal  liberty  of  studying  the  Bible  and 
forming  their  own  principles  and  practices  for  themselves 
from  what  their  own  reason  should  discover  in  the  Bible. 
His  preface  to  his  Defense  of  Dort  Calvinism  said  :  ''It 
is  true  we  ought  not  to  pin  our  faith  on  the  sleeves  of  any, 
nor  to  call  any  man  master,  as  Christ  speaks  and  means, 
but  him  alone." 

Again  he  says  :   "  The  custom  of  the  Church  is  but 


INSPIRATION.  255 

the  custom  of  men ;  the  sentence  of  the  fathers  is  but 
the  opinion  of  men  ;  the  determination  of  councils  but 
the  judgment  of  men,  what  men  soeyer." 

^^Sonie  are  so  servilely  in  bondage  to  the  determina- 
tions of  certain  doctors  as  that  they  think  nothing  well 
done  in  religion  which  these  teach  not ;  and  some  of  these 
are  so  transported  with  waspish  zeal  as  they  can  scarcely, 
without  a  fit  of  an  ague,  Cither  speak  to  or  think  of  him 
who  a  little  steps  out  of  their  tread." 

"  I  profess  myself  always  one  of  them  who  still  de- 
sire to  learn  farther  or  better  what  the  good,  will  of 
God  is." 

"  I  will  not  justify  all  the  words  of  another  man,  nor 
3'et  mine  own." 

'*  Tlie  meanest  maiih  reason,  specially  ik  matter 
OF  FAITH  AND  OBEDIENCE  TO  GOD,  IS  to  1)6  preferred  lie- 
fore  all  autliority  of  all  other  men. " 

"Men  are  often  accounted  heretics  with  greater  sin 
through  want  of  charity  in  the  judges  than  in  the  judged 
through  want  of  faith." 

Eichard  Baxter,  whose  orthodoxy  no  one  will  question, 
had  no  fears  of  the  higher  criticism,  raised  no  claim  for  a 
solid  Bible,  a  unit,  or  no  Bible  at  all,  but  affirmed  almost 
as  a  truism  : 

"The  Old  Testament  letter  (written  as  we  have  it 
about  Ezra's  time)  is  that  vehicle  which  is  as  imperfect 
as  the  revelation  of  these  times  was  ...  so  that  he  that 
doubteth  of  the  truth  of  some  words  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, or  of  some  circumstances  in  the  New,  hath  no  rea- 
son therefore  to  doubt  of  the  Christian  religion." 

This  appears  to  have  been  the  opinion  which  prevailed 
among  the  divines  of  the  Westminster  Assembly. 

"Reason,"  says  Bishop  Butler,  "  is  the  only  faculty 
we  have  wherewith  to  judge  concerning  anything,  even 
revelation  itself." 


256  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Who  has  eyer  made  a  more  radical,  a  more  '^  free- 
thinking  "  statement  ? 

**  It  is  of  much  more  importance,"  says  Origen,  '^to 
give  our  assent  to  doctrines  upon  grounds  of  reason  and 
wisdom  than  on  that  of  faith  merely." 

**  Which  subject  he  (Cyprian)  did  not  handle  as  he 
ought  to  have  done,  for  he  (Demetrius)  ought  to  have 
been  refuted,  not  by  the  testimonies  of  Scripture,  which 
he  plainly  considered  vain,  fictitious,  and  false,  but  by  ar- 
guments and  reason." 

Thus,  all  along  the  way  a  clean,  clear  path  has  been 
stamped  by  the  strong,  steady  feet  of  thinkers  fighting 
for  reason  when  reason  meant  chains  and  stake  and  cross, 
and  we  who  have  entered  into  their  rest  but  never  into 
their  labors,  we  Agnostics,  Radicals,  ^'New  Departure" 
folk,  we  pipe  a  languid  note  for  reason,  and  on  the 
strength  of  it  call  ourselves  original  and  heroic,  the  slaves 
of  thought. 

As  a  Mosaic  institute,  as  a  Pauline  dialectic,  as  a  the- 
ological issue,  as  a  Congregational  question,  Miss  Breck- 
enridge  bears  so  directly  on  the  doctrine  of  inspiration 
that  she  needs  no  apology  for  an  introduction. 

Professor  Foster  informs  us  that  Miss  Juanita  Breck- 
enridge,  a  student  in  Oberlin  Theological  Seminary,  ap- 
plied for  the  customary  license  to  preach  the  Gospel  to 
the  Cleveland  Conference,  at  its  recent  meeting  at  North 
Amherst,  Ohio,  April  16,  1890,  in  connection  with  the 
other  members  of  the  seminary  who  applied  in  accord- 
ance with  the  usage  of  the  churches. 

The  application,  after  a  considerable  discussion — 
which  did  not  attack  the  examination  sustained  by  the 
young  lady,  which  was,  indeed,  eminently  satisfactory — 
was  laid  upon  the  table  till  the  fall  meeting  of  the  Con- 
ference. The  matter  is  therefore  before  the  denomination 
for  discussion. 


INSPIRATION.  257 

Professor  Howe  hopes  '*  that  it  will  be  discussed  as  a 
question  of  positive  religion.  The  apostle  Paul,  in  the 
first  Epistle  to  Timothy,  expressly  forbids  that  women 
should  Ueach.'  The  passage  is  the  one  in  which  he 
lays  down  those  general  directions  concerning  the  minis- 
try which  constitute  the  very  foundation  of  the  sacred 
office.  It  begins  with  the  office  of  public  prayer.  This 
is  committed  to  men  in  distinction  from  women,  and  the 
reason  upon  which  the  prohibition  is  grounded  is  found- 
ed in  the  creation,  in  the  history  of  the  fall  of  man, 
and  in  the  relations  of  sex.  The  passage  passes  then  to 
the  immediate  consideration  of  the  qualifications  of  bish- 
ops. Text  and  context  determine  the  meaning  of  the 
apostolic  prohibition,  and  that  is  that  while  woman  is  a 
daughter  of  Eve,  and  while  she  still  remains  a  woman, 
she  can  not  authoritatively  ^  teach,'  or  do  precisely  that 
which  Miss  Breckenridge  desires  to  do  when  she  applies 
for  a  license.  So  it  would  appear  to  be  a  question  sim- 
ply whether  Christianity  is  a  positive  religion,  which 
binds  Congregationalists,  or  else  whether  the  interpreta- 
tion of  this  passage  which  has  been  almost  universally 
given  is  correct.  We  hope  the  discussion  will  follow  this 
line." 

And  perhaps  the  highest  Congregational  authority 
pronounces  more  formal  judgment  after  giving  what 
seems  to  be  a  fair  and  full  statement  of  the  case  :  **Our 
ministry  and  our  churches  have  almost  uniformly  re- 
garded the  family,  and  not  the  individual,  as  the  social 
unit ;  and  have  understood  Paul  [I  Cor.  xi,  3-1 G  ;  xiv, 
34,  35  ;  Eph.  v,  22-24 ;  and  especially  I  Tim.  ii,  11-13] 
as  teaching,  as  plainly  as  it  is  within  the  power  of  hu- 
man language  to  teach,  that  Christianity  does  not,  as  the 
rule,  w^hatever  may  be  true  in  rarely  exceptional  cases, 
recognize  any  right  of  woman  in  the  pulpit.  In  recent 
years  men  have  arisen,  like  the  late  Mr.  Beecher,  who 
17 


258  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

have  argued  that  times  have  so  changed  that,  were  Paul 
now  alive,  he  would  teach  a  different  gospel  on  this  sub- 
ject. Such  a  suggestion  seems  to  us  squarely  in  the  face 
of  any  effectual  doctrine  of  divine  inspiration.  If  the 
Scriptures  can  be  modified  in  their  tone  of  truth  by  what 
somebody  thinks  their  authors  would  say,  were  they  writ- 
ing to-day,  the  word  of  the  Lord  does  not  stand  as  Isaiah 
said  it  did,  while  the  grass  withers  and  the  flower  fades. 
We  hope  our  brethren  will  have  grace  to  settle  this  ques- 
tion as  God  wants  it  settled." 

Thus  it  seems  that,  as  plainly  as  it  is  within  the  power 
of  human  language  to  teach,  Paul  teaches  that  Miss 
Breckenridge  must  not  preach  ;  and  to  teach  otherwise 
is  to  stand  squarely  in  the  face  of  any  effectual  doctrine 
of  divine  inspiration. 

Happily  the  texts  are  given  which  bear  on  Miss  Breck- 
enridge. Let  us  examine  them,  noting,  however,  first, 
that  if  the  Scriptures  are  not  to  be  modified  by  times  and 
seasons,  the  ceremonial  law  of  the  Jews  is  of  full  obliga- 
tion in  America  at  this  day  : 

I  Corinthians,  xi,  3-16. 

**  But  I  would  have  you  know,  that  the  head  of  every 
man  is  Christ ;  and  the  head  of  the  woman  is  the  man  ; 
and  the  head  of  Christ  is  God.  Every  man  praying  or 
prophesying,  having  his  head  covered,  dishonoreth  his 
head.  But  every  woman  that  prayeth  or  prophesieth 
with  her  head  uncovered  dishonoreth  her  head  :  for  that 
is  even  all  one  as  if  she  were  shaven.  For  if  the  woman 
be  not  covered,  let  her  also  be  shorn  :  but  if  it  be  a  shame 
for  a  woman  to  be  shorn  or  shaven,  let  her  be  covered. 
For  a  man  indeed  ought  not  to  cover  his  head,  forasmuch 
as  he  is  the  image  and  glory  of  God  :  but  the  woman  is  the 
glory  of  the  man.  For  the  man  is  not  of  the  woman ; 
but  the  woman  of  the  man.  Neither  was  the  man 
created  for  the  woman  ;  but  the  woman  for  the  man. 


INSPIRATION.  259 

For  this  cause  ought  the  woman  to  have  power  on  her 
head,  because  of  the  angels.  Nevertheless  neither  is  the 
man  without  the  woman,  neither  the  woman  without  the 
man,  in  the  Lord.  For  as  the  woman  is  of  the  man, 
even  so  is  the  man  also  by  the  woman  ;  but  all  things  of 
God.  Judge  in  yourselves  :  is  it  comely  that  a  woman 
pray  unto  God  uncovered  ?  Doth  not  even  nature  itself 
teach  you,  that,  if  a  man  have  long  hair,  it  is  a  shame 
unto  him  ?  But  if  a  woman  have  long  hair,  it  is  a  glory 
to  her  :  for  her  hair  is  given  her  for  a  covering.  But  if 
any  man  seem  to  be  contentious,  we  have  no  such  cus- 
tom, neither  the  churches  of  God." 

It  requires  heroic  self-control  not  to  give  the  exe- 
gesis which  this  most  interesting  passage  prompts,  but 
we  must  keep  to  the  point,  which  is  Miss  Brecken- 
ridge  ;  and  all  that  Paul  has  to  say  about  Miss  Brecken- 
ridge  is  that  she  should  preach  with  her  head  covered. 
He  not  only  does  not  refuse  to  recognize  her  license  to 
preach  and  to  pray  in  public,  but  he  distinctly  recognizes 
both — if  she  wears  a  bonnet !  More  than  that,  he  refuses 
to  continue  the  argument,  even  if  she  will  not  wear  her 
bonnet.  He  says  what  he  thinks  is  proper,  but  if  any 
man  is  contentious,  Paul  declines  to  waste  time  over 
that ;  he  waives  it  aside  with  the  simple  remark,  *^  It  is 
not  our  way,"  and  goes  on  to  more  important  matters. 

But  what  of  the  reasoning  that  would  make  such  a 

text  prove  such  a  conclusion  or  stand  squarely  in  the  face 

of  inspiration  ? 

I  Corinthians,  xiv,  34,  35. 

'^  Let  your  women  keep  silence  in  the  churches  :  for  it 
is  not  permitted  unto  them  to  speak  ;  but  they  are  com- 
manded to  be  under  obedience,  as  also  saith  the  law. 
And  if  they  will  learn  anything,  let  them  ask  their  hus- 
bands at  home  :  for  it  is  a  shame  for  women  to  speak  in 
the  church." 


260  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

Observe  that  Paul  does  not  say,  *Met  all  women  keep 
silent  in  the  churches,"  but  "let  your  women" — the 
women  of  the  noisy,  clamorous,  unruly  Corinthian 
church,  to  whom  his  letter  is  specifically  addressed. 
There  is  no  question  of  pulpit,  or  teaching,  or  preaching, 
but  of  women  starting  up  in  the  pews  to  interrupt  the 
preaching  with  questions.  He  does  not  say,  *'  if  they 
wish  to  preach  or  teach  anything,  let  them  ask  their  hus- 
bands at  home,  but  if  they  will  learn  anything  let  them 
ask  their  husbands  at  home."  He  is  trying  to  bring  order 
and  decorum  into  a  new  and  turbulent  church.  Even 
the  men  are  like  grown-up  boys— delighted  with  their 
new  liberty  but  not  half  comprehending  it,  and  altogeth- 
er running  riot.  In  a  hundred  ways,  gently  but  most 
urgently,  he  tries  to  curb  them  with  every  consideration 
of  worldliness  and  unworldliness  ;  to  keep  them  from 
talking  all  together  and  making  a  nuisance  and  scandal  of 
their  meeting.  He  shows  them  how  absurd  it  is,  how  use- 
less, how  mischievous.  Hq  tells  them  when  they  ought 
to  speak,  how  many  may  speak  at  once,  when  they  ought 
to  be  silent  talking  only  to  themselves  and  to  God,  giving 
them  the  most  minute  directions  with  a  reasonable  and 
delicate  persuasiveness.  It  was  a  troublesome  and 
thankless  task,  and  when  he  turns  to  the  women  he  evi- 
dently sees  that  it  is  hopeless.  Even  Paul  abandons 
the  situation  and  says  simply  :  *'  Do  not  you  talk  at 
all "  ;  and  I  think  we  all  agree  that  he  took  the  wisest 
course. 

But  what  of  the  reasoning  that  says  unless  the  direc- 
tions given  to  the  disorderly  female  chatterers  in  the 
Corinthian  churches,  where  the  men  were  chattering  as 
noisily,  and  were  curbed  as  strenuously,  short  of  being 
absolutely  silenced — unless  these  directions  apply  to  Miss 
Breckenridge,  able,  educated,  and  desiring  to  preach  the 
Gospel  with  perfect  decorum  and  the  full  consent  of 


INSPIRATION.  261 

her  congregation — there  is  no  effectiye  doctrine  of  divine 
inspiration  ? 

Ephesians,  V,  22-24. 

"  Wives,  submit  yourselves  unto  your  own  husbands,  as 
unto  the  Lord.  For  the  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife, 
even  as  Christ  is  the  head  of  the  church  :  and  he  is  the 
saviour  of  the  body.  Therefore  as  the  church  is  subject 
unto  Christ,  so  let  the  wives  be  to  their  own  husbands  in 
everything." 

As  plainly  as  human  language  can  teach,  this  seems  to 

teach  that  if  a  man  wishes  his  wife  to  preach,  she  must ; 

and  if  he  is  willing  she  should  preach,  she  may  ;  and  that 

Miss  Breckenridge,  having  no  husband  at  all,  may  do  as 

she  chooses. 

And  especially 

I  Timothy,  ii,  12-U. 

*^But  I  suffer  not  a  woman  to  teach,  nor  to  usurp  au- 
thority over  the  man,  but  to  be  in  silence.  For  Adam 
was  first  formed,  then  Eve.  And  Adam  was  not  deceived, 
but  the  woman  being  deceived  was  in  the  transgression." 

Paul  may  seem  to  have  been  a  little  hard  pushed  for 
argument,  but  it  answered  his  purpose  perfectly  with  the 
audience  he  was  addressing.  We,  however,  are  concerned 
only  in  re  Juanita  Breckenridge,  who  has  no  desire  to 
usurp  authority  over  the  man  in  teaching  and  preaching, 
but  asks  authority  from  man  to  teach  and  preach.  Paul 
having  previously  enjoined  upon  woman  to  be  well  dressed 
Avhen  she  was  preaching,  and  to  preach  if  her  husband 
wished  her  to  preach,  how  can  this  command  to  women 
not  to  speak  at  all  unless  they  can  speak  in  an  orderly  and 
legitimate  way  apply  to  Miss  Breckenridge,  who  asks  in 
the  orderly  and  legitimate  way  for  permission  to  preach  ? 

And  what  of  the  reasoning  that  squarely  refuses  any 
effectual  doctrine  of  divine  inspiration  unless  Paul  speaks 
to  the  Oberlin  graduates  and  the  Smith  College  gradu- 


262  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

ates,  and  the  Wellesley  and  the  Vassar  graduates,  in  the 
'vvords  that  he  spoke  to  the  Corinthian  neophytes  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago  ? 

Listening  to  such  exegesis  from  the  lips  of  men,  I  am 
ready  to  believe  that  there  is  a  loud  call  for  Miss  Juanita 
Breckenridge  in  the  pulpit. 

Surely  there  is  something  to  be  learned  from  the 
words  and  the  attitude  of  Christ  toward  women.  He 
paid  to  their  intelligence  the  exquisite  compliment  of 
addressing  it.  As  Dr.  Donaldson  has  reminded  us,  with 
a  woman  he  held  the  most  profound  conversation,  and  to 
a  woman  he  proclaimed  the  grandest  truths  of  his  reve- 
lation. A  woman,  in  her  enthusiasm,  entered  the  room 
where  Christ  was  dining  as  a  guest,  to  pay  her  costly 
tribute  of  adoration,  and  was  not  only  not  rebuked,  but 
has  been  immortalized  by  the  expressed  approbation  of 
our  Lord.  In  his  Oriental  nation,  Christ  and  his  mother 
mingled  with  equal  freedom  among  host  and  guests. 
His  intimacy  with  the  family  at  Bethany  took  in  the 
sisters — even  the  housekeeping  sister — to  as  lofty  and 
intellectual  an  intercourse  as  the  brother ;  and  his  first 
appearance  after  the  resurrection  was  to  a  woman.  All 
the  mildness  and  lenity  and  consideration  of  Christ  were 
lavished  on  women.  I  do  not  remember  that  to  any 
woman,  however  erring,  Christ  showed  token  of  dis- 
pleasure or  condemnation,  or  aught  more  severe  than  a 
grave  and  gentle  benignity.  His  few  words  of  wrath 
and  rebuke  were  for  men. 

Is  there  any  reason  why  the  test  of  Jeremiah  should 
not  be  applied  to  the  female  prophets  ?  If  they  profit 
the  people,  they  speak  the  words  of  the  Lord. 

The  New  Testament  is  nearer  to  us  in  time  and  in 
social  organization  than  the  Old  Testament.  Indeed,  so- 
ciety at  the  time  and  in  the  country  of  the  birth  of  Christ 
was  more  like  the  nineteenth  century  than  almost  any 


INSPIRATION.  263 

subsequent  century.  And  as  the  New  Testament  was  in 
a  sense  the  culmination  of  the  Old,  embodying  the  biog- 
raphy and  preaching  of  our  Lord,  it  is  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  sunshine  to  twilight ;  but  the  twilight  is  from  the 
same  sun,  and  it  is  the  twilight  of  the  dawn,  and  not  the 
coming  night.  We  should  not  countenance  the  idea  that 
the  New  Testament  has  any  more  claim  on  us  than  the 
Old.  The  Old  Testament  is  the  story  of  God's  shining 
pathway  through  the  life  of  man,  leading  to  his  fullest 
revelation  in  Christ.  The  New  Testament  is  the  record 
of  the  manifestation  of  God  in  Christ.  Neither  is  a  book 
of  precepts  for  us.  Both  are  books  of  principles  and  spirit 
which  we  must  apply  to  our  own  life  on  our  own  respon- 
sibility. The  precepts  of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments 
were  for  the  persons  to  whom  they  were  addressed — to 
all  the  world  only  so  far  as  circumstances  make  them  ap- 
plicable. Of  that  every  man  is  his  own  judge.  We  suffer 
not  the  authority  of  Moses  to  prevail  against  Sunday  wor- 
ship, and  there  is  no  more  reason  why  we  should  quote 
Paul  against  Miss  Breckenridge,  now  that  she  wants  a  li- 
cense to  preach  from  Oberlin  College,  than  there  is  why 
we  should  quote  Moses  against  a  clergyman's  frock-coat. 

The  hosts  of  learned  men  and  women  who  are  devoting 
their  lives  to  the  Pentateuch  and  the  prophets,  and  the 
other  hosts  who  are  digging  in  the  sacred  soil,  searching 
for  the  hidden  treasures  of  buried  cities,  only  show  how 
deep  a  hold  this  revelation  of  God  has  taken  on  the  hearts 
of  men.  In  all  these  studies,  in  all  these  excavations, 
the  Bible  is  the  mainspring  and  guiding  spirit — nay,  not 
only  the  guiding  spirit,  but  literally  the  guide-book. 

M.  Naville,  the  persistent  and  successful  Egyptian 
explorer,  recently  made  a  statement,  at  the  Victoria  In- 
stitute in  London,  of  the  discoveries  which  he  has  just 
made  ;  and  quoted  the  prophecy  of  Ezekiel  against 
Egypt,  because  it  contained  the  names  of   the  leading 


264  ^  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

buried  cities,  the  recovery  of  whose  records  he  is  desir- 
ous to  secure.  The  greatest  and  most  successful  Egyp- 
tian explorer  of  modern  times  goes  to  prophecy  for  light 
to  enable  him  to  find  that  which  others  had  failed  to 
discover,  thus  taking  the  Bible  as  the  little  red  Baedeker 
of  his  Egyptian  travels. 

He  informs  us  that  he  had  found  two  statues  of  Apepi, 
the  Pharaoh  of  Joseph,  and  inscriptions  in  regard  to  the 
Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus,  and  says :  *'  I  can  not  dwell  at 
great  length  here  on  the  events  of  the  Exodus,  yet  I  should 
like  to  mention  that  the  successive  discoveries  made  in 
the  Delta  have  had  the  result  of  making  the  sacred  nar- 
rative more  comprehensible  in  many  points.'' 

But  in  endeavoring  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
Bible,  to  yield  ourselves  to  its  divine  inspiration,  the 
very  first  thing  is  to  get  rid  of  false  theories  of  inspira- 
tion, that  shut  out  its  light  and  arrest  its  influence. 
They  have  been  chiefly  mischievous  in  this  :  that  when 
men  began  to  doubt  them  they  began  also  to  doubt  the 
Bible  itself.  But  the  impulse  caused  by  a  little  doubt 
is  checked  by  a  continuous,  a  widening,  and  a  deepening 
knowledge  which  is  setting  the  word  of  God  on  an  im- 
mutable basis.  In  this  eHort  the  Bible  combines  with 
human  reason,  acting  on  science,  on  explorations,  on  all 
human  observation  to  justify  and  elucidate  itself.  A  mys- 
terious inward  quality,  an  unexplained  prescience,  an 
insight — not  only  moral,  but  scientific — in  the  Bible,  is 
coming  out  under  the  fervent,  clear  light  of  modern  re- 
search, of  keen  investigation ;  so  strong,  so  indisputable,  so 
startling  that  it  has  already  called  a  halt  upon  induction, 
just  as  rationalism  called  a  halt  upon  the  old  manufac- 
tured, illiterate,  impossible  interpretation.  Reason  itself 
must  wait  for  facts.  The  Bible  is  proved  by  its  works.  By 
its  fruits  we  know  it.  Its  divine  certificate  is  its  compel- 
ling force,  its  pervasive  power.    A  clumsy  theory  was  in- 


INSPIRATION.  265 

vented  by  clumsy  man ;  but  as  man  himself,  under  the 
divine  educative  influence,  becomes  more  spiritual,  he  in- 
stinctively discards  the  clumsy  mechanism,  instinctively 
falls  into  harmony  with  the  divine  spirit. 

The  Bible  theory  of  inspiration  is  not  of  an  external  au- 
thority, but  of  influence,  inbreathing.  Man  makes  things 
by  external  measurements  and  means.  God  makes  by  in- 
ward growth.  During  our  war  men  battered  away  at 
Charleston  for  four  years,  and  only  displaced  a  few  stones. 
The  mighty  earth-force  touched  her  for  one  quiveriug  mo- 
ment, and  left  destruction.  Man  makes  a  house  noisily 
with  saw  and  hammer.  Silently  God  makes  a  tree.  Man 
governs  by  courts  and  congresses.  God  writes  his  law  un- 
seen, upon  the  unseen  heart.  In  human  work  man  is  al- 
ways at  the  fore.  He  alone  is  God  who  hides  liimself. 
But  inspiration  man  can  not  understand  ;  he  can  only 
feel.  He  suns  himself  in  the  heavenly  outflow,  his  whole 
nature  expands  with  the  heavenly  inbreathing,  but  he 
can  not  define  it. 

When  we  have  thoroughly  read  a  volume  of  Homer  or 
Eanke  or  Descartes  we  recognize  that  we  have  mastered 
its  contents  according  to  our  several  abilities.  However 
wide  its  scope,  still  its  scope  is  limited.  We  make  no 
new  discoveries  in  Macaulay.  We  found  no  new  systems 
on  Aristotle.  These  men  do  their  work,  shape  the  thought 
of  their  generation,  and  pass  to  the  shelves  of  immortality 
— to  be  known  by  name  to  the  intelligent,  to  be  studied 
here  and  there  by  scholars,  to  be  absolutely  dead  to  the 
populace. 

Thus  also  our  best  and  latest  books  of  religion — by 
Professor  Allen,  Matthew  Arnold,  Dean  Stanley,  Herbert 
Spencer,  Professor  Fisher,  and  others — full  as  they  are  of 
higli  thought  and  honorable  words,  enlightenment  and 
sanctification,  differ  from  the  Bible  in  that  they  are  not 
infinite.     It  is  all  there  ;  nothing  is  behind.     And  it  is 


266  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

a  little  all — the  arc  of  a  small  circle.  But  the  Bible  is 
forever  unfolding.  It  is  a  growth  and  not  a  mechanism. 
It  is  a  guide  to  the  humble  heart  which  knows  nothing 
about  it  intellectually,  but  craves  God.  The  wisest  gen- 
ius, conquering  the  mountain-tops  of  mind,  finds  equally 
that  the  Bible  is  before  him,  spanning  still  his  highest 
heaven  with  its  bow  of  promise,  arched  by  his  strictest 
law  of  mathematics,  tinted  according  to  his  most  rigid 
chromatic  science,  satisfying  in  form  and  color  his  most 
delicate  artistic  sense. 

Other  the  best  books  are  to  the  Bible  what  a  picture 
of  the  midnight  sky  by  some  master's  hand  is  to  the  dome 
of  heaven  itself.  The  picture  is  stirring,  stimulating, 
suggestive,  ideal ;  but  it  is  a  flat  surface — always  the 
same.  Too  near,  it  is  a  daub  of  oil  on  canvas.  But  the 
overbending  heaven  is  ever-revealing.  It  charms  the 
soul,  it  soothes  grief,  it  gratifies  the  sense  of  beauty.  It 
lights  the  peasant  on  his  path,  guides  the  mariner  across 
the  sea,  who  know  not  one  star  from  another,  except  as 
private  light  and  guide,  nor  guess  whence  any  star  is  cir- 
cling, or  on  what  law  it  is  hung.  But  the  astronomer, 
too,  who  turns  his  cunning  glass  upon  it,  sees  what  they 
see,  and  more — marvels  upon  marvels,  universe  beyond 
universe,  yet  never  gets  so  far  as  to  reach  a  bound  ;  with 
keenest  eye  and  strongest  lens  never  plucks  its  secret  from 
the  sky  ;  with  life-long  study  and  devotion  never  takes  a 
single  step  in  learning  that  does  not  widen  the  horizon  of 
his  iprnorance. 

From  such  a  book,  the  repository  of  the  inspiration  of 
ages,  so  heavily  charged  with  the  divine  Spirit  that  we 
call  it  The  Book  of  Inspiration,  it  is  but  natural  to  ex- 
pect that  truth  upon  truth  will  unfold.  Its  revelation 
should  keep  step  with  the  march  of  the  human  mind. 
To  found  upon  it  an  unchanging  theology  would  be  to 
relegate  it  to  the  list  of  books,  great  indeed,  but  plentiful 


INSPIRATION.  267 

enough  to  make  a  list,  accepted  at  one  age  of  the  world, 
practically  unused  thereafter.  A  theology  unchangeably 
true  to  its  unchanging  principles  of  righteousness,  love 
to  God  and  love  to  man,  but  forever  developing  new  feat- 
ures in  conformity  with  new  discoveries  of  its  meaning 
after  new  study  of  its  history  and  new  unfolding  of  the 
secrets  of  the  world — this  is  precisely  what  we  should  ex- 
pect from  that  intensity  of  revelation  which  makes  this 
the  Book  of  books. 

We  are  ever  clamoring  that  God  should  be  oracu- 
lar, and  he  never  is.  Sometimes  we  try  to  make  the 
Bible  oracular  by  opening  it  at  random  and  putting  a 
blind  finger  on  a  verse.  But  this,  also,  is  vanity.  God 
is  inexorable.  He  will  not  say  to  us  yea  or  nay.  All  the 
authority  of  Scripture  serves  simply  to  give  each  man  a 
warrant  for  his  own  convictions,  a  reason  for  the  hope 
that  is  in  him.  He  can  intrench  himself  in  error  behind 
the  breastwork  of  the  Bible  just  as  strongly  to  his  own 
convictions  as  he  can  intrench  himself  in  the  truth.  The 
light  of  revelation  may  shine  in  darkness,  and  the  darkness 
comprehend  it  not.  "We  have  the  revelation  of  Jesus  the 
Christ.  We  have  the  revelation  of  the  earth  and  the 
heavens  ;  and  we  have  within  us  that  vital  spark  of 
heavenly  flame,  reason,  which  must  be  to  each  man  his 
judge  of  all  revelation.  This  reason  we  shrink  from 
using.  We  are  ever  sinking  down  into  the  animal  nature 
up  from  which  we  sprung,  out  from  which  we  are  bidden 
forth,  and  asking  to  be  controlled,  asking  for  an  outside, 
tangible  authority,  for  an  *^  obvious  authority,  an  imperial 
authority,  an  authority  from  which  there  is  no  appeal." 
But  God  has  made  us  free  agents  and  he  requires  tbat  we 
control  ourselves.  He  tells  no  one  what  to  do,  or  think, 
or  say,  or  believe  ;  but  within  every  man,  differentiating 
him  from  the  beast,  making  him  in  the  image  of  God,  is 
a  something  by  which  he  must  say,  and  do,  and  think 


238  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

about  all  things  for  himself,  both  of  this  world  and  the 
next — the  spirit  of  man  and  the  law  of  God.  All  the 
way  is  strewn  with  blunders  ;  but  so  only  is  the  right 
way  learned.  The  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  un- 
derstanding, but  not  in  any  manner  or  to  any  extent  that 
forbids  the  human  understanding  to  be  often  at  fault. 
Men  make  a  thousand  blunders  even  in  their  highest  at- 
tempts at  pure  reasoning.  All  Scripture  is  given  by  in- 
spiration of  God,  and  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof, 
for  correction,  for  instruction  in  righteousness,  but  dis- 
charging no  man  from  responsibility  for  his  own  belief. 
For  a  thousand  years  it  has  said  to  no  man  :  Do  this  I 
Believe  that !  The  Bible  is  the  deposit  of  ages  of  human 
experience  under  the  unseen  government  of  the  universe. 
It  marks  and  records  the  highest  revelation  of  Deity  to 
humanity.  We  trace  in  it  the  footsteps  of  the  Creator 
from  the  first  brooding  darkness  of  our  material  universe 
to  its  culmination  in  the  redemption  of  man  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  All  that  is  contradictory  in  it, 
all  that  is  unmeaning,  is  but  the  inevitable  limitation  of 
the  human  minds  through  which  it  was  conveyed,  of  the 
human  minds  by  which  it  is  to  be  apprehended.  It  is 
just  what  Dr.  Clark  says  it  is  not — God  mirrored,  but 
limited,  in  human  conception  ;  but,  with  all  our  limitation, 
the  divine  element  in  the  Bible  is  so  strong,  so  sane,  so 
overpowering,  that — through  all  the  errors  of  all  the  ages, 
through  the  bickering  of  churchmen,  the  ignorance  of 
scholars,  the  mistakes  of  translators,  the  prejudices  of 
commentators,  through  the  besetment  of  bloody  barbar- 
ism and  barbarous  intolerance — sweet  and  pure  and  clear 
it  shines,  with  a  steady  and  increasing  light,  justifying  it- 
self by  its  own  radiance,  slowly  but  surely  softening  the 
world  with  its  warmth,  transfusing  ignorance  with  knowl- 
edge, penetrating  manners  with  kindness,  changing  fe- 
rocity   to    gentleness,   displacing    selfishness    by    love ; 


INSPIRATION.  269 

slowly,  slowly,  but  surely,  wresting— say,  rather,  releas- 
ing, redeeming,  dissolving — this  world  from  the  domin- 
ion of  the  beast,  and  bringing  us  into  the  kingdom  of  our 
Lord,  Christ,  what  we  w^ere  originally  created  to  be,  the 
children  of  the  Highest. 


CHAPTER  XL 

OKElJfESS    WITH    CHRIST. 

Before  approaching  the  subject  of  miracle  it  may 
be  well  to  disembarrass  ourselves  of  prejudice  that  the 
study  or  the  results  of  the  study  are  necessarily  pain- 
ful. He  has  little  perception  of  the-  nature  of  truth  who 
does  not  know  that  the  world  offers  no  greater  joy  than 
its  discovery,  whether  that  unfolding  come  slowly  like 
the  rapturous  dawn,  or  suddenly,  dazzling  forth  from 
clouds  and  thick  darkness. 

The  agnostic,  even  the  reverent  agnostic,  develops  a  ro- 
bust capacity  for  believing  that  ho  who  is  dragged,  rigid, 
resisting,  anguished,  at  the  chariot- wheels  of  thought,  is 
the  representative  of  a  small  minority  of  noble  natures 
who  are  at  the  mercy  of  thought,  at  the  mercy  of  truth, 
and  from  whom,  in  fact,  all  human  advance  comes.  To 
such  a  one  the  parting  with  what  is  called  the  Christian 
mythology  pictures  itself  as  the  rending  asunder  of  bones 
and  marrow.  A  recognition  of  the  kinship  of  humanity 
with  God  and  of  the  divinity  of  the  order  of  nature  rep- 
resents itself  as  the  soul-harrowing  crisis  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  life. 

Not  so.  A  Christian  of  the  old  Christianity,  who  has 
not  simply  felt  its  spirit  in  his  life  but  has  given  direct 
and  candid  thought  to  its  doctrines,  feels,  in  classifying 
its  myth,  that  he  has  come  to  the  fullness  of  time  when 
the  clumsy,  centuries-gathered  conglomeration  is  to  fall 


ONENESS  WITH  CHRIST.  271 

away  and  the  simple,  direct  religion  of  Christ  is  to  shine 
forth  in  its  pristine  purity.  It  is  the  sublime  and  crown- 
ing moment  of  his  life,  the  revelation  of  God  and  from 
God  in  his  own  rapt  and  worshiping  soul. 

Eighteen  hundred  years  ago  Jesus  Christ  himself  de- 
clared the  truth  of  human  and  divine  kinship  ;  came  on 
earth  expressly  to  declare  it ;  when  he  stretched  forth 
his  hand  toward  his  disciples  and  said:  ''Behold  my 
mother  and  my  brethren  !  For  whosoever  shall  do  the 
will  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven  the  same  is  my 
brother,  and  sister,  and  mother.  As  thou.  Father,  art 
in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us." 

Paul  said  it  as  strongly  :  ''  The  Spirit  itself  beareth 
witness  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of  God, 
and  if  children  then  heirs  ;  heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs 
with  Christ."  He  not  only  asserted  our  sonship,  but 
cried  out,  ^^  Because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth 
the  Spirit  of  his  son  into  your  hearts,  crying  Abba 
Father." 

The  beloved  and  loving  disciple  reiterated  it:  ''Be- 
loved now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  ap- 
pear what  we  shall  be." 

Old  orthodoxy  has  befogged  many  truths,  but  it  has 
kept  itself  alive  because  it  has  kept  alive  in  its  rugged 
bosom  the  vital  truth  that  we  are  the  children  of  God. 
It  is  a  great  truth,  but  it  was  not  left  for  nineteenth-cent- 
ury agnosticism  to  discover. 

"Every  human  soul  in  which  the  voice  of  God  makes 
itself  felt  enjoys,  equally  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  di- 
vine vsonship." 

This  statement  or  formula,  which  has  been  presented 
as  utterly  subversive  of  the  Christian  religion,  is  in  truth 
the  very  soul  of  the  Christian  religion. 

It  means  something  or  it  means  nothing.  The  some- 
thing meaning  is  that  which  lifts  man  to  the  level  of 


272  ^  WASHINGTON   BIBLE    CLASS. 

Christ.  The  nothing  meaning  is  that  which  lowers  Christ 
to  the  level  of  man. 

Jesus  Christ  is  only  a  great  man  :  This  is  the  final 
outcome  of  a  long,  sharp  struggle  in  the  devout  agnostic 
who  believes  himself  to  be  the  slave  of  truth,  and  he  im- 
mediately assumes  toward  Christ  an  attitude  which,  if 
Christ  were  indeed  only  a  great  man,  would  be  simply 
maudlin.  One  of  the  rules  of  the  Christian  brotherhood, 
founded  in  London  on  a  recoil  from  the  Godhood  of 
Christ,  is  that  every  meeting,  every  undertaking  of  what- 
ever kind,  shall  open  with  the  special  word  or  formula  of 
the  brotherhood  :  **  This  do  in  remembrance  of  me." 

Refusing  to  partake  of  the  Communion  Supper  in  re- 
membrance of  a  risen  Lord,  they  devise  the  eating  of  all 
meals  in  remembrance  of  a  dead  great  man,  and  thus  the 
brotherhood's  carj^enter  rises  in  his  cottage  home,  lifts 
his  right  hand,  and  pronounces  solemnly  :  "  The  Master 
said,  'This  do  in  remembrance  of  me,'  '^  and  the  smallest 
youngster  responds  :  *' Jesus,  we  remember  thee  always." 

It  is  little  that  this  custom  would  rob  the  original 
rite  of  its  special  beauty  and  tenderness,  or  that  it  inevi- 
tably suggests  to  us  Peters  crude  and  headlong  desire  to 
do  something  out  of  the  common  in  first  refusing  to  per- 
mit the  Saviour  to  wash  his  feet  with  the  others,  and 
then  insisting  on  being  washed  a  great  deal  more  than 
the  others. 

Nor  is  there  objection  to  it  on  the  old  orthodox  idea  of 
Jesus,  the  Christ,  if  one  finds  in  it  a  help  to  right  living. 
It  is  futile  and  grotesque  as  an  attempt  to  invest  a  mere 
Jewish  peasant  with  the  heavenly  robes  of  a  discarded  di- 
vinity. The  new  religionist  will  have  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
a  mere  man,  but  he  can  not  leave  him  to  take  his  chances 
beside  other  great  men.  We  may  admit  the  superiority 
of  his  character  and  of  his  intellect  as  a  Jewish  peasant ; 
and  I  do  not  know  any  flaw  in  the  integrity  of  Sir  Moses 


ONENESS  WITH  CHRIST.  273 

Montefiore  or  in  the  genius  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  but  the 
man  who  should  attempt  to  induce  people  to  say  grace  at 
table  to  Sir  Moses  Montefiore  or  to  Mr.  Disraeli  would 
be  counted  a  lunatic.  We  have  as  good  men  in  our  day 
and  country  as  tlie  world  has  ever  seen,  but  no  man  ever 
spreads  his  hands  over  consecrated  bread  before  the  peo- 
ple and  says,  with  reverent  lips  :  "  This  do  in  remem- 
brance of  Lincoln."  President  Garfield  never  stood  so 
low  in  the  society  of  his  time  as  stood  Jesus  in  Judea,  and 
never  will  be  so  high  as  Christ  before  Christendom,  but 
no  little  children  are  taught  to  lisp  at  even-tide,  "Gar- 
field, we  remember  thee  always."  When  the  sermon  is 
ended  and  the  prayer  offered,  no  congregation  is  ever  dis- 
missed with  the  benediction,  **  Go  in  peace,  in  the  love  of 
God,  and  in  the  memory  of  his  servant  George  Washing- 
ton." The  very  suggestion  seems  like  mockery,  irrever- 
ence.    One  feels  a  moral  shock. 

"  God  was  in  Christ  not  otherwise  in  kind  than  he  is 
in  man,"  says  the  devout  agnostic,  honestly  believing 
that  he  feels  the  inward  wrench  of  bones  and  marrow. 
Not  at  all.  There  is  no  marrow  in  such  bones.  This 
agonizing  agnostic  truth  is  a  truism  of  the  Bible.  It  is 
not  only  between  Christ  and  man,  but  between  God  and 
man  that  there  is  no  difference  except  in  degree.  We 
have  the  word  of  the  Bible  for  all  who  beliere  the  Bible. 
We  have  the  word  of  science  for  all  who  reject  the  Bible. 
God  made  man  in  his  own  image,  says  the  Genesis,  and 
those  who  distrust  the  Pentateuch  may  read  their  Gene- 
sis out  of  Herbert  Spencer  : 

"The  power  manifested  throughout  the  universe  dis- 
tinguished as  material  is  the  same  power  which  in  our- 
selves wells  up  under  the  form  of  consciousness  : 

"  The  power  which  manifests  itself  in  consciousness  is 
but  a  differently  conditioned  form  of  the  power  which 
manifests  itself  beyond  consciousness." 
18 


274  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

The  Genesis  of  Moses  and  the  Genesis  of  Science  agree 
that  the  power  which  created  man  is  the  same  in  kind  as 
man  himself.  It  is  a  scientific  confirmation  of  the  Bible 
Genesis  over  which  one  might  go  mad  with  joy  if  one 
must  go  mad  :  and  none  more  quickly  than  he  who, 
reared  in  the  old  orthodoxy,  accepting  :ts  truths,  loving 
its  spirit,  emulating  its  self-training,  j^et  can  not  adopt 
the  traditions  and  impossibilities  which  have  accumulated 
to  its  hiding.  If  it  be  not  truth,  it  is  yet  to  be  explained 
how  the  earliest  glimmer  of  light  upon  the  nature  of  man 
should  shine  harmoniously  with  the  latest  gleam  of  the 
light  which  science  has  kindled.  If  it  be  not  truth,  it 
is  certainly  a  wonderful  cumulation  to  the  proof  of  error 
that  the  oneness  of  humanity  with  divinity,  vaguely  and 
variously  hinted  at  in  many  ways  by  many  philosophers 
through  many  ages,  apparently  demonstrated  by  science 
in  these  later  times,  should  conform  so  exactly  with  the 
Logos,  the  word  incarnated  in  Christ,  the  unity  of  spirit 
outbreathed  by  him  as  life  and  immortality  brought  to 
light.  Ilis  good  tidings  of  great  joy,  communicated  to 
his  followers  by  the  thousand-fold  touch  of  personal 
association,  and  by  them  preached  to  the  world  tlirough 
doctrine  and  enthusiasm  and  martyrdom,  was  that  hu- 
manity partakes  of  the  divine  nature  ;  that  man  alone  of 
all  created  beings  is  in  the  image  of  God.  He  took  not 
upon  himself  the  form  of  beasts ;  he  took  upon  himself 
the  form  of  man,  thereby  consecrating  and  certifying 
humanity  as  the  image  of  God. 

But  it  is  just  as  important  to  note  the  difference  be- 
tween God  and  man  as  it  is  to  note  the  likeness  ;  and  to 
note  that,  although  we  are  made  in  his  image,  we  are  a 
great  deal  more  unlike  him  than  we  are  like  him.  Strong 
in  the  consciousness  of  bearing  his  image,  we  at  first  re- 
ject this  statement,  but  a  second  and  reasoning  thought 
compels  us  to  accept  it,  because  the  quantitative  difference 


ONENESS  WITH  CnRIST.  275 

between  God  and  man,  though  one  of  degree  alone,  is  so 
great  as  to  constitute  a  qualitative  difference.  An  atom  of 
salt  spray  on  the  rose's  petal  is  in  the  image  and  likeness 
of  the  ocean.  Its  components  and  proportions  are  the 
same.  It  is  governed  by  the  same  laws,  is  derived  from 
the  same  source,  is  tending  to  the  same  goal,  and  the 
quantitative  difference  between  itself  and  the  ocean, 
though  immense  and  to  us  incalculable,  is  not  infinite. 
Yet:  who,  from  the  evanescent  and  almost  impalpable  atom 
of  spray,  could  form  the  slighest  conception  of  the  mighty 
deep,  its  boundless  peace  and  eternal  unrest,  its  marvel  of 
color  and  sound  and  storm,  its  upbearing  power,  its  puri- 
fying potency,  its  destructive  energy,  its  ministration  to 
human  weal  ?  Surely,  the  spray-atom,  though  of  the 
ocean,  is  more  unlike  than  like  the  ocean.  It  is  like  only 
by  its  own  tiny  measurement.  It  is  unlike  by  the  count- 
less billows  of  the  sea's  wide-stretching  solitudes. 

The  difference  between  God  and  man  can  not  be  esti- 
mated, but  we  can  reach  toward  it.  In  the  science  and 
art  of  mechanism,  man  is  a  machinist.  We  understand 
that.  God  is  also  a  machinist.  Man  makes  a  steam- 
engine,  marvelously  contrived,  marvelously  effective  ;  but 
it  never  goes  till  it  is  started.  Its  fuel  has  each  day  to 
be  clumsily  put  in,  its  water  supplied,  its  track  laid,  its 
course  guided  every  minute,  without  its  own  knowledge, 
or  volition,  or  pleasure,  or  consciousness,  by  some  one,  by 
many,  outside  of  itself.  If  it  is  left  alone  one  moment,  it 
either  stands  still  idle  or  runs  wild  to  destruction,  while 
every  valve  and  wheel  and  piston  and  crank  is  by  itself  a 
dead  distinct  thing,  a  useless  piece  of  wood  or  metal. 

The  universe  is  the  engine  of  God  ;  its  motive  power 
invisible,  its  course  inconceivably  swift  and  silent  along 
unerring  paths,  its  life  self-perj)etnating,  its  sustenance 
self-administered,  its  Creator  and  engineer  a  God  who 
always  hideth  himself',  every  minute  subdivision  of  the 


276  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

great  macliine,  a  separate  machine,  instinct  with  a  life 
and  purpose  and  pleasure  of  its  own,  and  each  one  vitally 
bound  to  the  great  whole,  rising  at  least  in  one  case — 
man — into  a  machine  instinct  with  the  life  of  God  ! 

The  machine  of  the  universe — as  many  stars,  so  many 
suns  ;  as  many  suns,  so  many  systems  of  worlds  ;  and  be- 
yond all  visible  suns  and  systems,  universe  on  universe 
circling  the  unthinkable  spaces,  till  our  great  stirring, 
twinkling,  twilight  world  is  but  a  pin-point  in  the  im- 
measurable sky — how  can  there  be  a  being  equal  to  fram- 
ing, moving,  guiding,  upholding  this  visible  universe, 
which  is  as  far  beyond  thought  as  it  is  beyond  expression  ? 

There  is  only  one  thing  to  hold  the  mind  steady  ;  the 
universe  is  a  fact.  The  miracle  is  wrought.  The  Chris- 
tian and  the  atheist  are  at  one  on  the  main  point — that 
the  immensity  exists,  and  that  it  is  an  immensity  of  or- 
der, law,  harmony.  Therefore  it  is  of  one.  The  anem- 
one whorls  its  tender  petals  of  earliest  spring  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  which  guides  Arcturus  with  his  sons. 
For  all  our  littleness  we  are  just  as  sure  of  this  as  if  our- 
selves had  made  Arcturus  and  the  anemone.  The  Chris- 
tian and  the  atheist  alike  find  themselves  in  a  universe  of 
law  which  they  did  not  establish,  and  which  they  can  not 
overthrow.  It  would,  indeed,  be  impossible  to  believe 
that  one  being  could  create  and  control,  from  large  to 
small,  were  it  not  that  we  see  the  creation  and  obey  the 
control — both  in  infinite  measure,  great  and  small  in  both 
directions  alike  beyond  our  ken.  What  matter  whether 
we  call  this  creative  force  Absolute  Being,  or  the  Stream 
of  Tendency,  or  the  "World-Soul,  or  Unconscious  Intelli- 
gence, or  the  Unknowable,  or  Eternal  Energy,  or  the 
Power  outside  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness — 
Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord  ?  All  nomenclature  is  but  the 
outreach  of  language  toward  the  unreachable.  All  the- 
ology is  but  search  for  the  unsearchable.     What  possible 


ONENESS  WITH   CHRIST.  277 

analogy  can  give  to  a  being  chained  every  moment  to  one 
single  spot  of  earth  any  adequate  idea  of  a  being  who  is 
at  all  times  everywhere  ?  Thought  offers  the  only  glim- 
mer to  the  imagination,  and  that  is,  indeed,  only  a  glim- 
mer. What  analogy  between  thought  which  can  fix  firm- 
ly on  only  one  object  at  a  time,  and  but  feebly  on  two  or 
three  at  most,  and  that  Infinite  Thought  to  which  all  is 
an  Eternal  Now  and  Here  ?  Science  is  more  frank  than 
theology,  and  confesses  an  ignorance,  an  inability,  which 
theology  can  not  disown  or  disarm  by  calling  it  infidelity. 
Nothing  is  gained  for  religion  by  attempting  to  in- 
clude the  greatness  of  God  in  the  littleness  of  man.  Here 
theology  stumbles,  but  never  demonstrates. 

"  What  mortals  think  they  know  of  God 
A  thousand  tomes  rehearse ; 
What  mortals  do  not  know  of  God 
Fills  all  the  universe." 

Nevertheless,  the  power  which  manifests  itself  through- 
out the  universe  is  the  same  power  which  in  ourselves  wells 
up  under  the  form  of  consciousness. 

"Beloved,"  says  the  apostle  of  love,  "now  are  we  the 
sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be  ; 
but  this  we  know,  that  when  we  see  him  we  shall  be  like 
him,  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is."  The  argument  of 
arguments  for  our  hope  in  heaven  lies  in  these  words. 
Here  we  see  God  through  mists  and  clouds — through  a 
glass,  darkly — through  bad  habits  and  low  desires  and 
false  theology  and  all  sorts  of  moral  distortion  and  con- 
tortion and  abortion,  and  we  are  only  a  little  like  him, 
only  a  little  patient  and  true  and  just  and  kind,  growing 
ever  more  and  more,  we  trust,  a  little  more  like  him  ;  but 
there,  when  we  see  him  as  he  is,  the  naturalness  of  his 
justice,  the  radiance  of  his  goodness,  will  burn  out  the 
sin  in  us  with  its  unquenchable  fire,  purify  us  to  its  own 
purity,  kindle  in  us  its  own  light  and  warmth.     This  is 


278  ^  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

what  I  read  in  the  divine  sonship  of  man,  in  the  brother- 
hood of  Christ,  in  our  oneness  with  God. 

The  agnostic  forgets  this  oneness  of  man  with  God, 
sees  only  Christ  reduced  to  the  level  of  man,  when  the 
oneness  of  humanity  with  Christ  presents  itself  to  him  as 
a  crucial  point,  an  agonizing  truth,  the  crisis  of  intense 
and  even  destructive  spiritual  struggle. 

The  trouble  is  that  this  sort  of  ideal  truth -seeker  is  not 
at  the  mercy  of  truth  or  of  thought,  but  of  words.  He  does 
not  think  them  out  far  enough  or  deep  enough  to  see  that 
a  quantitative  difference  may,  by  reason  of  intensity  and 
immensity,  become  a  qualitative  difference.  God  is  in  the 
beast,  the  same  God  that  is  in  man,  yet  so  differently  in 
degree  that  the  beast  is  classified  popularly  and  practi- 
cally as  different  in  kind  from  man.  We  can  not  mark 
the  boundary  line,  but  we  never  fail  to  recognize  it. 
Theoretically,  it  is  elusive.  Practically,  it  is  insurmount- 
able. Science  amuses  herself  with  detailing  our  oneness 
with  the  beast,  but  no  Huxley  makes  a  contract  with  his 
horse.  John  Bright  never  asked  that  sheep  should  have 
the  ballot.  Matthew  Arnold  did  not  urge  an  intermedi- 
ate school  for  elephants.  Schopenhauer  and  Schleier- 
macher  and  the  most  strenuous  of  the  German  evolution- 
ists are  at  one  with  the  most  bigoted  of  pietists  in  treating 
talking  animals  as  on  an  entirely  different  plane  from 
dumb  animals. 

In  and  out  of  the  Bible  God  speaks  to  us  in  terms  of 
humanity  as  needs  must,  leaving  thus  to  human  reason 
wide  scope  for  exercise,  as  also  needs  must.  God  is  repre- 
sented as  our  Father,  Christ  as  our  elder  brother.  In  this 
world  the  son  often  becomes  a  greater  man  than  the 
father.  The  younger  brother  often  outstrips  the  elder  in 
wisdom  and  stature,  in  favor  with  God  and  man.  We  do 
not  on  that  account  suppose  ourselves  to  be  greater  than 
God.     We  need  not  on  that  account  suppose  ourselves  to 


ONENESS  WITH   CHRIST.  279 

be  equal  with  Christ.  What  we  may  learn  from  it  is  that 
we  partake  of,  we  share  in,  the  diTme  nature. 

Kadicalism  itself  has  scarcely  dethroned  the  divine 
Christ  before  it  begins  to  reconstruct  a  human  Christ  on 
the  old  divine  basis.  Every  step  shows  the  difficulty  of 
the  task.  When  the  new  brotherhood  founded  without 
a  divine  Christ  is  assembled,  the  murmur  of  assent  to 
the  leader's  oratory  is  so  enthusiastic  that  he  fears  it  is 
the  personal  element  that  is  shaping  their  future  and  his, 
and  he  is  up  in  arms  lest  any  mere  personal  fancy  should 
usurp  the  power  and  place  of  his  idea. 

Why  should  he  deprecate  joersonality  ?  Personality 
was  the  strong  point  of  the  Jewish  peasant  whom  he  rec- 
ognizes as  master,  yet  who  was  but  such  a  one  as  him- 
self. Christ  did  not  shrink  from  personality.  Christ 
preached  it,  proclaimed  it  as  head  and  front  of  his  mis- 
sion. '^  Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest. 

**Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  me,  for  I  am 
meek  and  lowly  in  heart — I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and 
the  life. 

''  Ye  will  not  come  unto  me  that  ye  might  have  life. 
I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life. 

'*  Ye  that  have  followed  me,  every  one  that  hath  for- 
saken houses  or  brethren  or  sisters  or  father  or  mother  or 
wife  or  children  or  lands  for  my  narne's  saTce  shall  inherit 
eternal  life,^^ 

Should  we  be  willing  to  forego  one  jot  or  tittle  of 
that  divine  self-setting-forth  ? 

I  believe  and  maintain  that  the  world  has  never  seen 
better  men  than  those  whom  we  know  and  honor,  whom 
we  love  and  live  with  ;  and  if  the  difference  between  the 
best  of  them  and  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  quantitative  dif- 
erence  which  amounts  to  a  qualitative  difference,  Jesus 
Christ  was  a  very  self -conceited  man. 


280  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

"  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  son  of  the  living  God,  * 
is  the  rock  on  which  was  built  the  Church  of  Christ. 

**  Jesus  of  Nazareth  becomes  to  us  by  the  evolution 
of  circumstance  the  most  moving,  the  most  efiBcacious  of 
all  types  and  epitomes  of  God's  work  in  man/'  is  the  rock 
on  which  the  new  church  is  founded.  The  statement  is 
undoubtedly  true  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  is  it  so  much  more 
adequate  and  accurate  a  statement  that  a  man  should 
wreck  his  pastoral  office  and  his  personal  happiness  on 
its  production  ?  It  is  surely  a  far  less  fundamental  ut- 
terance, a  far  more  partial  and  local  assertion  than  the 
one  which  it  supplants. 

"  A  new  social  bond,  a  new  compelling  force  in  man 
and  in  society,"  is  what  the  agnostic  craves ;  ''that  dimi- 
nution of  the  self  in  man  which  is  to  enable  the  individual 
to  see  the  world's  ends  clearly,  and  to  care  not  only  for 
his  own  but  for  his  neighbor's  interest ;  to  make  the  rich 
devote  themselves  to  the  poor  and  tlie  poor  bear  with  the 
rich.  If  man  only  would,  he  could  solve  all  the  problems 
which  oppress  him.  It  is  man's  will  which  is  eternally 
defective,  eternally  inadequate.  Without  religion  you 
can  not  make  the  will  equal  to  its  tasks.  Our  present  re- 
ligion fails  us  ;  we  must,  we  will  have  another." 

With  the  roar  of  Jonathan  Edwards  still  reverberating 
through  New  England  theology,  old  England's  agnos- 
ticism puts  forth  its  pronunciamento  on  the  eternal  inad- 
equacy of  the  will  as  a  fresh  discovery.  With  the  voice 
of  Christ  ringing  a  thousand  changes  on  the  heavenly  cor- 
rective, "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  the 
voice  of  the  agnostic  clamors  for  a  new  compelling  force 
in  man  and  in  society  which  shall  make  a  man  care  not 
only  for  his  own,  but  for  his  neighbor's  interest.  With 
thousands  of  churches  and  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciations and  all  sorts  of  societies  of  Christian  Endeavor, 
the  agnostic  gathers  another  assembly  as  like  as  the  peas 


ONENESS  WITH  CHRIST.  281 

in  a  pod,  and,  because  he  calls  his  assembly  '*  The  New 
Brotherhood  of  Christ,"  he  imagines  that  he  is  material- 
izing a  new  religion.  The  agnostic's  prayer  at  his  first 
religious  service  of  the  new  brotherhood  is  **  rather  an  act 
of  adoration  and  faith  than  a  prayer  properly  so  called. 
It  represents,  in  fact,  the  j)lacing  of  the  soul  in  the  pres- 
ence of  God.  It  is  essentially  modern,  expressing  the 
modern  spirit,  answering' to  modern  need." 

But  before  agnosticism  was  born  the  old-fashioned 
churches  were  singing  : 

"  Prayer  is  the  soul's  sincere  desire, 
Uttered  or  unexpressed ; 
The  motion  of  a  hidden  fire 
That  trembles  in  the  breast. 

"  Prayer  is  the  burden  of  a  sigh, 
The  falling  of  a  tear, 
The  upward  glancing  of  an  eye 
When  none  but  God  is  near." 

The  old  religion  fails  us  and  we  evolve  a  new  religion 
out  of  our  moral  consciousness,  and  this  new  religion, 
upon  examination,  presents  not  one  single  person  or  pur- 
pose, principle  or  idea,  which  is  not  borrowed  from  the 
old,  only  so  dismantled  and  degraded  and  betinseled  as 
to  seem  almost  a  deliberate  burlesque. 

But  it  is  not.  Undoubtedly  it  is  an  honest  and 
earnest  attempt  to  find  God  ;  and  it  will  succeed.  And 
yet,  speaketh  Paul  to-day,  shew  I  unto  you  a  more  ex- 
cellent way. 

The  agnostic  turns  away  from  the  old  religion,  not  be- 
cause it  has  failed  him,  but  because  he  has  failed  it.  He 
is  like  one  who  got  on  comfortably  enough  with  the  sys- 
tem of  things  so  long  as  the  earth  was  the  only  world  in 
the  universe,  but  whose  mind  shrinks  and  shrivels  before 
a  universe  of  worlds.  At  the  very  moment  when  the 
grand  sweep  and  scope  of  Christianity  seems  outlining 


282  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

itself  in  the  light  of  day,  the  light  of  heaven  shining  full 
upon  our  dark,  revealing  it  to  lis  as  the  heir  of  all  the 
ages,  the  proof  and  promise  of  all  our  future,  he  reverses 
his  field-glass  and  sees  in  Christianity  only  "something 
small  and  local." 

Christianity  something  small  and  local !  It  is  true  or 
it  is  false  according  as  it  is  set  against  Christ's  words  or 
against  some  untenable  human  dogma  built  upon  Christ's 
words.  If  we  must  believe  that  the  whole  world  was  lost 
in  sin  without  any  effort  on  the  part  of  its  Creator  to 
communicate  himself  to  his  children,  to  teach  and  guide 
and  strengthen  them,  except  through  one  wandering 
desert  tribe  leading  to  a  Christ  who  benefits  only  those 
who  consciously  met  him  on  earth,  and  those  who  now 
accept  him  through  a  certain  definite  formula — against 
such  a  theory  the  declaration  that  Christianity  is  some- 
thing small  and  local  is  revolutionary.  But  he  who  has 
read  the  Bible  with  receptive  and  candid  mind  knows 
that  all  the  books  can  not  make  Christianity  much 
smaller,  much  more  local  than  the  grain  of  mustard-seed, 
the  little  leaven  whereunto  Christ  likened  it.  But,  small 
and  local,  the  vital  point  was  there,  the  eternal  life  which 
has  been  ever  since  unfolding,  however  slowly,  which  by 
its  mighty  development  promises  to  become  universal. 
The  agnostic  sees  in  that  mustard-seed  only  a  grain  of 
sawdust. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

MIKACLES. 

"And  miracles  do  not  happen.'' 

This  is  the  culminating  point  of  intellectual  revolt  and 
intellectual  illumination  in  theology. 

What  is  miracle  ?  Is  it  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  na- 
ture ?  This  may  be  or  may  have  been  the  popular  assump- 
tion, but  in  no  science  has  more  rapid  and  real  advance 
been  made  than  in  theological  science.  Yet  enlightened 
minds  that  pride  themselves  on  being  superior  to  popular 
superstition  and  above  the  domain  of  authority,  will  dis- 
cuss theology  exactly  as  if  the  theological  world  had  been 
at  a  stand-still  for  a  hundred  years.  There  are  men  whose 
reputation  for  original  research,  for  liberal  views,  for  in- 
tellectual freedom,  for  eloquent  theological  revolutionism, 
rests  chiefly  on  their  skill  in  ridiculing  discarded  theories. 
Of  the  advanced  positions  of  theology  they  exhibit  a  pro- 
found ignorance.  Nay,  more  ;  so  unequal  are  the  ways 
of  man  toward  theology  that  this  very  advance  has  been 
made  its  reproach.  Theology,  leaping  from  one  stage  to 
another  as  increasing  light  shows  it  the  way,  is  represented 
as  encountering  defeat.  Is  astronomy  defeated  when  men 
cease  to  counteract  the  evils  of  an  eclipse  with  gongs,  and 
begin  to  prophesy  it  by  figures  ?  Science  docs  not  drive 
theology  from  its  positions.  It  clears  the  path  and  opens 
the  gate  by  which  theology  rushes  on  radiant  to  new  pos- 
sessions and  new  triumphs.  Rather  is  theology  itself  the 
ultimate  science. 


28i  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

It  would  be  a  little  further  behind  time,  but  no  more 
really  behind  time,  to  write  an  essay  to  prove  that  the 
world  is  not  sustained  on  the  back  of  a  turtle  than  it  is  to 
write  an  essay  to  demonstrate  to  theology  that  God  does 
not  violate  his  own  laws. 

With  the  wider  and  higher  views  that  theology  shares 
with  and  learns  from  all  other  sciences,  theologians  see 
that  miracle  is  not  the  violation  of  law,  but  the  action  of 
law.  Miracle  is  not  even  a  deviation  from  known  law. 
All  apparent  deviation  is  considered  to  be  caused  by  the 
action  of  unknown  law  upon  known  law.  Luther  appre- 
hended and  illustrated  this  truth  with  equal  clearness  and 
beauty,  divining  it  by  the  poetry  of  his  own  nature. 

'*I  have  recently  witnessed  two  miracles,"  he  wrote  to 
his  friend.  ''This  is  the  first:  As  I  was  at  my  window, 
I  saw  the  stars  and  the  sky  and  that  vast  and  magnificent 
firmament  in  which  the  Lord  has  placed  them.  I  could 
nowhere  discover  the  columns  on  which  the  Master  has 
supported  this  immense  vault,  and  yet  the  heavens  did 
not  fall. 

"  And  here  is  the  second  :  I  beheld  thick  clouds  hang- 
ing above  us  like  a  vast  sea.  I  could  neither  perceive 
ground  on  which  they  reposed,  nor  cords  by  which  they 
were  suspended  ;  and  yet  they  did  not  fall  upon  us,  but 
saluted  us  rapidly  and  fled  away." 

The  wont  of  science  is  not  to  deny  the  apparent  devia- 
tion, but  to  account  for  it.  When  Neptune  wandered, 
the  astronomers  did  not  indolently  content  themselves 
with  laying  it  to  bad  telescopes,  or  shimmering  atmos- 
phere, or  deluded  observers.  They  put  up  their  lenses 
and  discovered  Uranus. 

It  is  absolute  truth  that  miracle  lives  with  ignorance 
and  is  withered  by  knowledge  ;  but,  instead  of  establishing 
the  impossibility  of  miracle,  it  establishes  directly  the  con- 
trary— its  possibility  ;    nay,  even  its  probability.      With 


MIRACLES.  285 

God  alone  the  Omniscient  is  and  can  be  no  miracle.  To 
him  alone  is  no  law  unknown.  To  him  is  everything 
easy,  open,  natural.  But  man,  limited  and  ignoraut,  is 
always  liable  to  the  operation  of  unknown  laws — always 
liable  to  a  miracle. 

The  course  of  modern  thought  is  not,  as  many  fear,  to 
destroy  the  supernatural,  but  to  lift  nature  into  the  region 
of  what  was  formerly  called  the  supernatural.  AVe  no 
longer  look  upon  God  as  outside,  showing  himself  occa- 
sionally by  reversals  of  order.  God  is  in  his  world.  God 
is  in  his  universe,  showing  himself  always  in  the  tran- 
quil and  stately  march  of  universal  order.  The  earth 
in  its  circling  path  has  come,  as  it  were,  into  a  belt  of 
miracle  ;  the  kernel  of  truth  which  lay  at  the  heart  of 
myth  and  legend  has  been  brought  under  the  reign  of  law, 
and  miracle  itself  takes  its  place  in  the  grand  procession 
of  knowledge,  circling  forever  upward  toward  the  eternal 
mystery. 

And  at  this  time  of  all  times  we  are  asked  to  reject  the 
Bible  as  competent  testimony;  are  referred  to  the ''un- 
broken sequences  of  Nature,  in  the  long  history  of  man, 
for  the  revelation  of  God." 

What  does  this  revelation  testify  ? 

An  exhaustive  examination  of  human  records  on  the 
theme  of  miracle  requires,  we  are  informed,  a  familiarity 
with  several  Oriental  languages,  including  Sanskrit  and 
Hebrew  ;  fifteen  years  in  the  whole  mass  of  existing  rec- 
ords, Indian,  Persian,  Egyptian,  Jewish;  then  fifteen 
years  more  for  the  Christian  records  from  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era  down  to  the  sixth  century,  from  Livy 
to  Gregory  of  Tours,  from  Augustus  to  Justinian— thirty 
years  of  unbroken  solitary  labor. 

And,  after  all  is  said,  what  does  this  revelation  tes- 
tify ?  "I  find,"  says  a  student  of  such  labors,  "in  the 
a^e  which  saw  the  birth  of  Christianity,  as  in  so  many 


286  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

other  ages,  a  universal  preconception  in  favor  of  miracle 
— ^governing  the  work  of  all  men  of  all  schools.  The  air 
teems  with  miracles.     The  East  is  full  of  Messiahs  ! " 

If  there  is  any  meaning  to  words,  it  would  seem,  then, 
that  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  long  history  of  man, 
outside  the  Bible,  is  a  perfect  confirmation  and  counter- 
part of  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  New  Testament. 
But  no,  quite  the  contrary,  says  the  student. 

Here  is  the  syllogism. 

God  reveals  his  way  in  the  long  history  of  man. 

The  long  history  of  man  testifies  to  a  universal  precon- 
ception in  favor  of  miracle,  and  the  Bible  testifies  to  the 
occurrence  of  miracle. 

Therefore  there  are  no  miracles ! 

Or,  to  put  it  a  little  differently  : 

God  reveals  himself  in  human  history.  If  thirty  years 
of  research  into  human  record  disclose  a  universal  belief 
in  and  expectation  of  miracle,  and  if  eighteen  hundred 
3'ears  of  experience  reveal  a  belief  in  miracle  accom- 
plished, it  is  a  proof  that  miracle  is  impossible.  Such  is 
the  logic  of  agnosticism. 

Then  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  long  history  of 
man  is  a  stupendous  lie.  Whatever  may  be  the  truth  of 
the  Bible,  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  long  history  of 
man  has  been  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  It  shows  that  hu- 
manity may  have  a  universal  preconception,  with  no 
truth  to  correspond  ;  that  these  universal  human  instincts 
may  be  guided  by  culture  and  wrought  into  philosophy  by 
all  men  of  all  schools,  and  yet  signify  nothing  and  come 
to  nothing.  The  revelation  of  God  in  the  long  history 
of  man  is  but  a  mockery  if  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
miracle. 

To  say  that  miracles  can  not  happen,  which  is  the 
practical  popular  equivalent  of  the  assertion  that  miracles 
do  not  happen,  is  to  say  that  all  the  laws  of  nature  and  of 


MIRACLES.  287 

God  are  known  to  man.  To  say  thafc  miracles  could  not 
have  attended  the  advent  of  Christ  is  to  say  that  all  the 
laws  of  all  the  universes  were  known  to  the  Jews  in  Judea 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  All  the  laws  of  that  matter 
which  sparkles  as  stars  in  the  heavens  or  Avhich  is  hidden 
by  unfathomable  distance  ;  all  the  laws  which  that  in- 
scrutable power  called  by  science  Force,  by  religion  God, 
impresses  upon  matter  ;  all  the  laws  of  that  force,  whether 
allied  necessarily  with  matter,  or  working  as  pure  force 
upon  pure  spirit — all  are  known  to  the  one  ephemeral  being 
glued  to  one  minute  globe  of  the  whirling  universes. 
Man  has  encircled  the  cosmic  sphere.  What  we  do  not 
know  in  this  age,  in  this  stage,  in  this  world,  can  not  be 
true. 

Bigotry  itself  never  took  a  narrower  foothold.  Sci- 
ence itself  never  made  so  preposterous  a  claim. 

If  not  a  single  miracle  had  been  recorded  in  the  Bible, 
if  no  particle  of  testimony  had  ever  been  given  in  support 
of  miracles,  nothing  can  be  true  in  the  established  consti- 
tution of  things,  but  that  miracles  may  happen.  In  the 
order  of  the  universe  there  is  a  place  for  miracle,  whether 
it  ever  happened  or  not. 

If  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  to  him- 
self, the  long  history  of  man  becomes  logical.  Every- 
thing is  not  explained,  but  everything  is  set  in  the  line 
of  explicability  and  tends  toward  a  rational  and  lofty 
solution.  If  God  was  in  Christ,  the  impossible  becomes 
not  only  possible,  but  natural  and  orderly. 

If  God  was  in  Christ,  and  if  by  him  he  made  the 
worlds,  Christ  must  have  known  all  the  possibilities  and 
potencies  of  matter;  he  must  have  known  the  worlds 
he  made.  All  that  science  has  ever  discovered,  or  will 
ever  discover,  he,  the  Maker,  knew.  Whatever  force  of 
service,  of  healing,  was  in  plant  or  mineral,  in  simple  or 
compound,  Christ  knew.     Hidden  from  the  world  then. 


288  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

hidden  from  the  world  now,  Christ,  if  he  made  the  world, 
knew  it  all.  The  constitution  of  light  and  heat  and 
sound  was  familiar  to  him.  Every  source  of  disease, 
every  mode  of  cure  in  the  materia  medica,  every  healing 
property  in  mind  or  matter,  was  familiar  to  him  because 
they  harmonized  with  the  principles  on  which  he  had  con- 
structed the  world.  Science  has  hurried  but  slowly, 
creeping,  fighting  as  she  crept  for  right  of  way  ;  yet,  look- 
ing back,  we  see  that  she  has  made  great  strides,  and  they 
are  all  in  the  direction  of  the  world  of  spirit.  She  has 
advanced  always  in  the  direction  of  lightening  the  clog  of 
matter.  From  the  clumsiness  of  wood  and  coal  and  iron 
she  has  released  the  refinements  of  oil  and  gas ;  for  hu- 
man labor  she  gives  the  machinery  of  unwearying  iron 
fingers,  conquering  thus  time  and  toil  and  space.  The 
mocking  and  mysterious  electricity,  a  sphinx  subtile  and 
dangerous,  is  not  perhaps  subdued,  but  mocks  no  longer ; 
is  very  far  from  being  even  wholly  understood,  but  is 
already  trained  to  service,  is  compelled  to  submit  to  in- 
vestigation ;  while  the  compelling  mind  has  darted  even 
beyond  electricity  and  conjectured  the  elusive  ether. 

If  God  was  in  Christ  to  such  an  extent  that  by  Christ  he 
made  the  worlds,  Clirist  must  have  known  the  worlds  he 
made,  in  their  ultimate  constitution,  in  their  remotest  pos- 
sibilities. If  he  sometimes  used  that  knowledge  in  ways 
unknown  to  Judea,  it  was  no  miracle  to  Mm,  It  was 
no  contravention  of  the  laws  of  nature,  but  only  an  appli- 
cation of  laws  which  the  world  had  not  yet  discovered. 
If  Jesus  had  chosen  to  flash  his  words  from  southern 
Judea  to  northern  Galilee  on  the  lightning's  wing,  it 
would  have  been  a  miracle.  We  flash  our  words  around 
the  earth  and  it  is  no  miracle.  Knowledge  has  withered 
the  miracle.  It  is  now  but  a  natural  process,  a  utiliza- 
tion of  the  earth's  forces.  But  the  same  forces  were  in 
the  earth  then,  lacking  only  the  master  mind  to  wield 


MIRACLES.  289 

them.     If  God  was  in  Christ,  the  master  mind  was  not 
lacking. 

Without  time  to  bring  to  the  examination  of  every 
miracle,  without  the  learning,  or  as  yet  the  knowledge,  to 
make  such  an  examination  conclusive,  we  may  yet  divide 
miracles  into  two  classes,  which  may  afford  help  to  the 
judgment,  and  say  ;  All  miracles  which  lie  along  the  lines 
of  the  world's  movement  have  much  in  favor  of  their  his- 
torical nature.  All  miracles  which  lie  outside  of  that 
movement  have  no  such  probability,  and  by  so  much 
have  a  presumption  on  the  side  of  their  allegorical  or 
mythical  interpretation. 

For  example,  the  story  of  the  talking  serpent,  the 
story  of  Balaam's  ass,  lie  outside  the  track  of  the  world's 
progress.  There  is  no  indication  of  the  world's  moving 
in  the  direction  of  conversational  brutes ;  that  is,  mind 
does  not  tend  downward  toward  the  intellectuality  of 
animals.  It  is  all  the  other  way.  It  is  toward  the  es- 
tablishment of  spirituality  in  man.  It  is  away  from 
animals  to  angels.  I  should  therefore  naturally  consider 
the  probability  to  be  that  these  stories  are  allegorical, 
mythical,  pictorial. 

In  confirmation  of  this  view  it  may  be  observed  that 
the  miracles  of  Christ  are  generally,  if  slightly,  attached 
to  nature.  Sometimes  it  is  only  the  will  of  man  that  is 
concerned.  Often  the  miracle  is  built  up,  as  it  were,  on 
the  material  world — is,  we  may  say,  but  a  step  beyond  our 
reach.  If  we  take,  for  example,  the  first  miracle  which 
Jesus  wrought  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  we  see  that  he  did  not 
create  wine  out  of  nothing.  He  turned  water  into  wine. 
The  miracle,  instead  of  being  inconceivable,  is  conceivably 
credible  and  scientific.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I 
give  it  simply  by  way  of  illustration  and  suggestion,  not 
by  way  of  proof.  Nor  is  the  illustration  or  the  science 
mine — only  the  application. 


290  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

Water,  composed  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  lacks  in 
chemical  combination  one  of  the  elements  needed  by 
molecular  change  to  form  wine ;  but  it  does  liold  in 
solution  the  lacking  element — carbon.  Water,  at  ordi- 
nary temperatures  and  atmospheric  pressure,  is  capable 
of  holding  an  equal  volume  of  carbon  dioxide,  which 
may  be  absorbed  from  the  atmosphere  ;  and  as  that  sup- 
plies carbon,  it  is  possible  to  have  in  water  every  element 
needed  to  form  wine — namely,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  carbon. 
The  sugar  is  made  up  wholly  of  molecules  of  water  con- 
bined  with  carbon.  The  ethers  and  the  acids  are  formed 
of  groupings  of  the  same  elements.  The  alcohol  results 
from  slight  molecular  changes  in  the  sugar.  If,  then, 
we  had  the  power  of  controlling  molecular  changes  in 
water,  we  no  doubt  could  at  any  moment  transmute  it 
into  wine.  Nature  continually  does  this.  Every  open- 
ing spring  and  summer  and  autumn  sees  the  unwearied 
sun  from  day  to  day  turning  water  into  wine.  It  needed 
but  an  intensifying  of  the  force  of  nature  to  accomplish 
the  miracle — an  intensification  and  an  accomplishment 
which  we  may  all  one  day  command. 

With  our  present  knowledge  of  chemistry  we  have  no 
such  control.  But  neither  had  Luke  any  knowledge  of 
the  trained  possibilities  of  steam.  To  Zebedee  the  electric 
car  would  have  been  as  impossible  as  to  us  molecular  dis- 
turbance. Tw^o  weeks  before  the  ocean  cable  was  firmly 
laid,  science  printed  elaborate  and  incontrovertible  argu- 
ments showing  that  the  constitution  of  water  must  for- 
bid the  transmission  of  electricity  for  any  long  distance. 
Christ  never  pretended  any  miracle  more  absurd  to  all 
but  the  credulous  than  to  hear  a  man  talking  a  hundred 
miles  away.  We  have  not  raised  the  dead,  but  we  have 
already  invented  an  instrument  by  which  one,  although 
dead,  yet  speaketh,  and  may  speak  for  a  thousand 
years. 


MIRACLES. 


291 


Is  it  incredible,  inconceivable,  that  the  power,  the 
force,  the  God  who  or  which  stamped  atoms  with  the 
laws  we  know,  may  have  stamped  upon  them  also  other 
laws  which  we  have  not  yet  discovered  ?  Shall  a  world 
which  has  learned,  one  might  almost  say,  to  live  by  water ; 
which  within  a  few  years  has  learned  how  to  produce  mo- 
tion and  light  and  heat  from  water  ;  how  to  force  water 
into  its  service  to  do  its  hardest  work ;  how  to  make  air 
and  lightning  its  spiritual  messengers  and  annihilate  space 
and  time  in  common  talk — is  it  for  such  a  world  to  say 
that  an  accelerated  transmutation  of  water  into  wine  is 
inconceivable  and  unscientific  ? 

If  God  was  in  Christ,  the  thing  is  not  only  possible 
but  natural.  Christ  himself  always  treated  his  miracles 
as  natural,  referred  to  them  sometimes  as  proof  of  his 
power,  but  quite  as  often  apparently  sought  to  lighten 
the  stress  laid  upon  them  ;  often  indeed  adjured  his  fol- 
lowers not  to  mention  them,  not  to  speak  of  them.  It 
was  as  if  he  would  occasionally  appeal  to  things  palpably 
and  strikingly  beyond  their  knowledge  to  impress  upon 
them  that  he  was  master  of  knowledge  ;  but  at  the  same 
time  he  was  alert  that  they  should  not  rest  tliere,  should 
not  fritter  themselves  away  in  vain  wondering  about  mat- 
ters otherwise  unimportant,  beyond  the  scope  of  that  day, 
but  should  use  the  confidence  imparted  by  his  superior 
knowledge,  in  the  absorption  of  those  spiritual  truths 
which  he  had  come  to  enforce  by  the  authority,  the  illu- 
mination, the  power  of  his  divine  personality. 

If  God  was  in  Christ,  if  Christ  was  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh,  miracles  were  not  only  conceivable,  but  natural, 
orderly,  to  be  expected  from  him.  It  all  depends  upon 
the  fact  and  truth  of  the  incarnation  ;  it  is  whether  Jesus 
Christ  was  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  Socrates,  Cato,  Lo- 
renzo, Howard,  Franklin,  and  Mr.  Bergh  ;  or  whether  he 
was  the  Son  of  the  Living  God. 


292  A  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

The  fact  of  the  incarnation  is  not  affected  by  any 
philosophy  of  the  incarnation. 

If  Jesus  Christ  had  descended  from  Joseph  and  Mary 
by  ordinary  generation,  it  would  haye  no  relation  whatever 
to  the  truth  of  the  incarnation. 

If  it  had  been  left  to  us  to  devise  a  mode  of  incarna- 
tion, there  could  occur  to  us  no  reason  why  the  extraor- 
dinary divine  should  not  invest  itself  with  the  orderly 
and  ordinary  divine  humanity.  There  would  indeed 
seem  to  be  a  reason  why  it  should,  for  thus  would  the 
incarnate  be  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  only  without  sin. 

The  fact  of  the  resurrection  is  not  affected  by  any 
philosophy  of  the  resurrection. 

If  in  some  tomb,  hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock,  there 
should  be  discovered  to-day  the  unquestionable  body  of 
our  Lord,  wound  in  the  linen  clothes,  with  the  hundred- 
pound-weight  of  myrrh  and  aloes  wherewith  loving 
friends  had  laid  it  to  rest — none  the  less,  Christ  the  Lord 
is  risen  to-day. 

Humanity  has  no  experience  out  of  which  to  evolve 
any  theory  of  a  new  order.  Nothing  can  be  more  nar- 
row than  to  limit  the  ways,  the  modes  by  which  God 
shall  enter  his  world,  by  which  spirit  force  shall  impress 
itself  upon  matter,  by  which  the  ever-immanent  shall  re- 
veal itself  to  the  finite.  AYe  have  not  to  invent  ways  in 
which  power  would  be  likely  to  manifest  itself.  We 
have  only  to  study  the  ways  in  which  power  has  mani- 
fested itself.  We  are  to  study  the  incarnation  as  we  find 
it  in  the  unbroken  sequences  of  nature,  in  the  long  his- 
tory of  man  ;  as  the  old  Andover  founders  put  it,  through 
that  infallible  revelation  which  God  constantly  makes  of 
himself  in  his  works  of  creation,  providence,  and  redemp- 
tion. 

The  grounds  of  Christianity  are  literary  and  histori- 
cal.   They  are  also  philosophical.    If  they  were  not  philo- 


MIRACLES. 


293 


sopliical,  their  literary  and  historical  character  would  be 
insiguificaut. 

For  the  present,  however,  let  us  consider  Christianity 
on  its  literary  and  historical  grounds ;  on  which  ground 
Christian  story  is,  by  certain  scholars,  decided  to  be 
false.  ''  To  the  man  who  has  had  the  special  training 
required,  and  in  whom  this  training  has  not  been  neutral- 
ized by  any  overwhelming  bias  of  temperament,  the  Chris- 
tian story  is  proved  false  ;  is  demonstrated  to  rest  on  a 
tissue  of  mistake.'' 

What  is  the  special  training  required  to  prove  the 
Christian  story  false  ?  In  one  case  we  have  seen  that  it 
is  a  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  Sanskrit,  and  other  Oriental 
languages  and  thirty  years'  research  into  the  records  of 
India,  Persia,  Egypt,  Judea,  and  the  Christian  records  for 
the  first  six  centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  It  will  readily 
be  seen  that  a  demonstration  of  the  mistake  of  the  Chris- 
tian story  is  inaccessible  to  the  great  mass  of  humanity. 
We  must  take  the  falsity  of  the  Christian  story  on  faith, 
and  on  a  good  deal  more  faith  than  the  Christian  story 
requires.  I  venture  to  say  there  are  not  a  hundred  men 
in  America,  I  question  if  there  are  a  hundred  men  in 
England,  who  have  devoted  the  thirty  years  of  research 
necessary  to  this  demonstration  ;  while  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  men — there  have  been  perhaps  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  men — who  have  devoted  life  to  the  investigation 
and  elucidation  of  the  Christian  story.  The  Christian 
story  is  spread  before  our  eyes.  Ko  man  so  poor  but  he 
can  buy  the  documents  and  read  and  judge  for  himself. 
The  falsity  of  Christianity  is  demonstrated  by  documents 
which  the  vast  majority  of  the  human  race,  which  the 
vast  majority  of  Christendom,  never  have  seen,  never 
will  see,  never  can  see.  All  the  documents  that  prove 
Christianity  false  have  not  been  able  to  secure  from  the 
master  races  of  the  world  one  thousandth  part  of  the 


294  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

scrutiny  which  has  been  lavished  on  the  story  of  Christi- 
anity. 

A  few,  a  very  few,  years  ago  a  little  book  was  discov- 
ered, a  mere  treatise  of  two  thousand  one  hundred  and 
ninety  words  ;  and  because  it  related  to  the  first  century 
after  Christ  the  learned  world  sprang  upon  it  with  an 
eagerness  that  has  produced  a  library  of  comment.  Al- 
ready it  is  said  the  literature  of  that  one  little  book — what 
it  teaches,  what  it  confirms,  the  light  it  throws  on  dark 
places — has  occupied  the  most  original,  the  best  furnished 
minds  of  the  age.  So  far  from  there  being  any  decline  of 
interest  or  any  decline  of  confidence  even,  in  this  cool, 
critical,  unsuperstitious,  evidence-weighing  nineteenth 
century,  the  literature  of  this  late-found  leaflet  already 
exceeds  that  on  any  of  the  so-called  Apostolic  Fathers. 
And  it  all  tends  to  confirm  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
story  ! 

Considering  Christianity  as  a  question  of  documents, 
outside  of  itself  what  documents  are  in  its  favor  ?  For 
one  thing,  everything.  Every  book  from  the  printing 
press,  every  newspaper  at  the  breakfast  table,  every  bill 
sent  from  the  grocery,  every  bequest  from  the  dead,  every 
contract  of  the  living,  bears  witness  to  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  story.  All  the  letters  of  affection,  all  the  tele- 
grams of  business,  all  the  exact  details  of  legal  transac- 
tion, are  founded  on  the  truth  of  Christ,  and  by  their 
very  date  testify  of  his  coming — Anno  Domini — the 
Year  of  our  Lord.  Nearly  two  thousand  years  ago  some- 
thing happened  in  the  East — something  which  happened 
without  observation,  but  which  had  persistence  and  per- 
vasiveness, which  insinuated  itself  into  the  very  frame- 
work of  society  till  out  of  silence  and  suffering  and  shame 
it  has  changed  the  heart  and  the  face  of  civilization  and 
has  become  the  dominant  idea  of  the  dominant  race  of 
the  world.     Every  man  who  reads  or  heeds  December 


MIRACLES. 


295 


25, 1888,  January  1, 1889,  July  18, 1890,  confesses  Christ, 
be  he  saint  or  sinner,  Jew  or  Gentile,  infidel  or  rector, 
tractarian  or  radical. 

The  whole  structure  of  the  dominant  civilization  is 
not  only  based  on  but  inwrought  with  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  story.  If  by  any  means  the  name  and  the 
story  of  Jesus  Christ,  everything  which  has  come  from  it 
into  the  life  of  the  world;  could  suddenly  and  completely 
be  burned  out  of  the  memory  and  consciousness  and  rec- 
ord of  man,  society  would  be  a  chaos. 

"The  toiler  of  the  world,"  says  the  doubter,  sadly, 
"as  he  matures,  may  be  made  to  love  Socrates,  or  Buddha, 
or  Marcus  Aurelius.  It  would  seem  often  as  though  he 
could  not  be  made  to  love  Jesus." 

By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  Which  has  the 
most  influence  on  life  to-day  in  Europe  and  America, 
Socrates,  or  Buddha,  or  Marcus  Aurelius,  or  Jesus 
Christ  ?  How  many  churches  are  reared  to  Buddha  in 
England  ?  How  many  w^orking  men  and  women  on  the 
continent  sustain  a  memorial  supper  to  Socrates  ?  How 
many  of  the  trades  unions  of  the  United  States  or  how 
many  individual  members  of  society,  young  men  and 
maidens,  ever  founded  an  alliance  of  mutual  endeavor 
in  right  living,  in  beneficent  and  charitable  work,  in  the 
name  of  Marcus  Aurelius  ?  Or  of  Socrates  ?  Or  of 
Buddha  ? 

A  little  while  ago  a  young  girl — sweet,  pure,  perfect, 
I  think  one  might  say — went  beyond  the  vision  of  earth. 
Three  and  a  half  years  after  her  death  a  sealed  envelope 
was  found  which  contained  a  paper  whose  date  showed 
that  it  was  written  when  she  was  twelve  years  old.  It 
was  to  this  effect : 

"  I  do  henceforth  and  forever  give  myself  to  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  I  give  my  soul  to  him  ;  my  body  to  work 
for  him  ;   my  tongue  to  speak  for  him  ;    my  hands  to 


296  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE   CLASS. 

work  for  him.  I  give  my  whole  self  to  him,  to  be  for- 
ever his.  He  will  keep  me,  guide  me,  and  guard  me. 
I  must  seek  him  every  day.  I  must  love  him  better  than 
all  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  must  do  as  I  know  he  wants 
me  to  do,  and  all  I  do  must  be  to  please  him.  I  must 
love  to  read  his  word.  I  must  do  all  the  good  I  can  in 
all  the  ways  I  can.  Not  one  of  all  these  things  can  I  do 
without  his  help,  and  he  will  help  me  if  I  come  to  him 
with  my  whole  heart." 

Seven  years  after,  overtaken  by  sudden  illness  in  Eu- 
rope, the  same  little  hand  wrote  : 

*'0h,  my  darling,  how  I  miss  you  !  I  am  so  home- 
sick that  I  feel  sometimes  as  if  I  can  not  bear  it. 

''Nothing  seems  like  home.  When  I  think  I  may 
die  here,  the  longing  is  dreadful  to  get  home  and  see  you 
all  once  more.  I  would  give  all  Europe  to  be  with  you 
again.  But  Jesus  is  my  never-failing  friend.  He  is  al- 
ways near  with  comfort  and  help.  He  always  makes  me 
happy  and  satisfied  to  leave  every  event  of  life  or  death  in 
his  hands." 

Is  it  only  what  Jesus  Christ  has  in  common  with 
Marcus  Aurelius,  and  Socrates,  and  with  other  Jewish 
peasants  of  amiable  inclinations  that  brings  him  thus  in 
effective  pledge  and  stimulus,  comfort  and  succor,  to  the 
innocent — yes,  and  to  the  guilty,  to  the  weak,  the  strug- 
gling, to  the  helpless  and  the  suffering  ?  What  lie  is 
more  stupendous  than  God's  revelation  of  himself  in  the 
long  history  of  man  if  the  Christian  story  which  has 
ministered  to  generations  of  trusting,  helpless,  ignorant, 
devout,  shall  in  a  moment  of  dread  awakening,  or  a  more 
dreadful  blank  and  dark,  be  proved  false  ? 

"  To  reconceive  the  Christ.  It  is  the  special  task  of 
our  age,  though  in  some  sort  and  degree  it  has  been  the 
ever-recurring  task  of  Europe  since  the  beginning." 

Why  ?  There  has  never  been  anything  which  might  be 


MIRACLES.  29Y 

called  a  movement  toward  reconceiving  Socrates,  or  Mar- 
cus Aurelius,  or  George  Washington.  We  have  not  been 
aware  of  any  especial  attempt  in  Europe  or  America  to 
reconceive  Buddha,  though  Buddha  is  for  us  originallv 
and  as  a  man  no  more  an  Oriental,  an  Asiatic,  than  is 
Jesus  Christ.  And  Buddha  had  anywhere  from  five  to 
fifteen  hundred  years  the  start  of  the  Christ.  Why  is  it 
that  the  world  can  never  have  done  with  Jesus  Christ  ? 
Why  is  it  that  he,  his  name,  his  nature,  his  life,  his  char- 
acter, his  work,  is  the  center  of  perpetual  interest,  is  the 
pivot  upon  which  the  world's  life  turns  to-day  ? 

W^e  can  not  all  spend  thirty  years  among  Persian 
manuscripts  and  past  ages,  but  a  present  European  and 
American  fact  must  be  met.  It  can  not  be  buried  under 
any  mass  of  legendary  or  Oriental  lore.  We  require  no 
learning  to  see  that  the  stamp  of  Christ  is  on  Christen- 
dom and  that  the  stamp  of  Christendom  is  on  the  world. 
A  Jewish  peasant  ?  Believe  it  who  must.  It  is  better 
to  believe  so  much  than  not  to  see  Christ  at  all.  It  is 
better  to  touch  the  hem  of  his  beautiful  garments  than 
not  to  recognize  in  any  way  his  benign  and  beneficent 
presence.  But  to  me  that  belief  is  but  the  substitution 
of  an  unmeaning,  unreasonable,  and  degrading  miracle 
for  a  philosophical,  an  ennobling,  and  significant  miracle. 
It  sets  a  miracle,  at  odds  with  the  long  history  of  man, 
in  the  place  of  a  miracle  wholly  in  line  with  the  history 
of  man. 

To  mc  it  is  easier  to  understand  it,  if  in  him  was  life; 
and  that  life  is  the  light  of  men  ;  to  believe  that  in  him 
the  Word,  tlie  Logos,  the  Eternal  Eeason  was  made  flesh 
and  dwelt  among  men  ;  and  forever  as  long  as  the  world 
stands,  and  more  and  more  closely  and  lovingly  the  longer 
the  world  stands,  will  men  study  that  object-lesson  from 
the  unseen  universe,  will  men  peer  through  that  rift  in 
the  heavy  clouds  of  matter  to  discern  life  and  immortali- 


298  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

ty  brought  to  light ;  good  tidings  of  great  joy  which  shall 
be  to  all  people. 

That  the  air  teems  with  Messiahs  is  the  testimony 
of  the  documents.  Who  stamped  upon  humanity  this 
divine  expectation,  wholly  at  yariance  with  the  unbroken 
sequences  of  nature  ?  Whence  came  this  idea  of  heavenly 
transmission,  this  instinct  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  this  aspira- 
tion for  a  higher  order  to  crown  the  world's  completion  ? 

For  hundreds  of  years  before  Christ  came,  in  what 
wide  regions  remote  we  find  this  hope,  this  aspiration,  a 
presentiment  of  humanity  in  the  direction  of  help  from 
above,  a  more  than  mortal  power  to  spring  from  earth's 
highest  virgin  purity  vitalized  from  the  unseen  universe. 

If  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  long  history  of  man 
is  trustworthy,  must  there  not  be  some  essential  truth  to 
meet  this  wide  expectation  ? 

Science  scoffs  the  possibility.  Does  science  never  hint 
the  possibility  ?  Are  the  sequences  of  nature  unbroken  ? 
Science  has  spoken  some  significant  words ;  not  less  sig- 
nificant because  they  were  not  spoken  to  this  point. 

It  is  a  common  scientific  statement  that  the  laws 
governing  the  higher  forms  of  life  can  be  rightly  compre- 
hended only  by  an  acquaintance  with  the  lower  and  more 
formative  types  of  being.  Science  is  continually  making 
more  and  more  evident  the  close  relations  which  exist 
between  our  own  life  and  the  lives  of  the  very  humblest 
of  our  fellow-creatures — even  those  minute  creatures 
whose  organisms  consist  of  a  single  cell. 

In  no  problem  is  this  more  true  than  that  of  sex.  It 
is  not  until  we  go  below  the  vertebrate  series  and  contem- 
plate the  invertebrate  and  vegetable  worlds  that  we  really 
begin  to  find  the  data  for  a  philosoj^hical  study  of  the 
meaning  of  sex. 

This  is  the  impartial  major  premise  of  Science.  Since 
we  can  not  then  complete  a  philosophical  cycle  of  the 


MIRACLES.  299 

highest  life  until  we  learn  the  lowest,  what  does  that  in- 
vestigation teach  for  a  minor  premise  ? 

That  tliere  is  a  great  world  of  life  which  wholly  ante- 
dates the  appearance  of  sex,  the  world  of  asexual  life  ; 
but,  so  far  as  sex  can  be  predicated  of  tliis  world  of  asexual 
life,  it  is  feminine.  The  genesis  is  parthenogenesis.  The 
parthenogenetic  parent  is  in  all  essential  respects  a  mother. 
There  are  numberless  cases  in  which  the  female  form  con- 
stitutes the  type  of  life. 

It  follows  then — it  is  still  Science  speaking,  not  I — 
that  the  argument  from  biology  that  the  existing  rela- 
tions between  the  sexes  in  the  human  race  are  perfect 
and  permanent,  comprise  all  that  Nature  ever  intended 
and  have  no  further  significance,  leads  logically  to  ab- 
surdity. Those  who  rightly  interpret  the  facts  can  not 
avoid  learning  that  the  female  sex  is  primary,  in  point 
both  of  origin  and  of  importance,  in  the  history  and 
economy  of  organic  life.  And  as  life  is  the  highest  prod- 
uct of  Nature,  and  human  life  the  highest  type  of  life,  it 
follows  that  the  grandest  fact  in  nature  is  woman  ;  that 
woman  is  the  race  ! 

Evolution  has  no  limits.  If  these  principles,  laid 
down  by  science,  are  correct,  in  the  far-away  ages  of  the 
lowest  forms  of  life,  in  the  first  introduction  of  life  upon 
this  planet,  may  be  discerned  the  signs  of  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  Man,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  The  sequences 
of  nature,  so  far  from  disproving  the  Christ,  foreshadow 
him.  The  sequences  of  nature  are  broken  to  testify  of 
him.     Far  off  his  coming  shines. 

In  the  same  spirit  of  scientific  humility  and  spiritual 
discernment  we  should  regard  the  statement  of  the  resur- 
rection and  ascension  of  our  Lord.  Through  life  he  is 
represented  like  as  we  are,  and  there  is  visible  and  pal- 
pable no  reason  wliy  his  assumption  and  dismissal  as  well 
as  his  conduct  of  life  should  not  be  those  of  humanity. 


300  ^  WASHINGTON   BIBLE   CLASS. 

The  resurrection  of  the  body  for  ourselves  we  have  utterly- 
discarded.  Why  should  it  not  be  discarded  for  the  body 
of  Christ  ?  If  flesh  and  blood  can  not  inherit  the  king- 
dom of  God,  how  can  we  declare,  with  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  that  when  Christ  did  truly  rise  again  he  took 
with  him  into  heaven  his  body,  flesh,  and  bones,  and  all 
things  appertaining  therewith  ? 

The  disciples  had  no  thought,  apparently,  of  natural 
history,  and  by  the  resurrection  they  meant  nothing  but 
palpable  continuance  of  life.  In  some  way,  by  incon- 
testable evidence,  they  were  shown  that  he  was  not  dead, 
but  alive  for  evermore.  The  spiritual  body  we  have  not 
so  much  as  begun  to  analyze — or  even  to  certify  its  exist- 
ence— any  more  than  had  the  apostles.  Whether  they 
saw  Christ  after  his  resurrection  in  the  spiritual  body,  by 
what  unknown  laws  he  may  have  manifested  himself  to 
them,  one  thing  is  assured  :  they  were  certain  that  they 
had  seen  the  Lord  ;  their  conviction  that  Christ  had 
risen,  and  that  he  is  Christ  the  Lord,  sprang  up  so  strong 
and  firm  out  of  the  grave,  where  their  hope  was  buried 
with  him,  that  it  has  conquered  the  world. 

It  may  well  be  that  this  vital  fact  clothed  itself  with 
a  defective  reason  and  philosophy  of  which  clearer  reason 
and  a  truer  philosophy  will  divest  it ;  but  we  should  do 
well  to  remenber  that  the  impossibilities  of  our  reason 
and  our  philosophy  may  be  the  natural  order  of  the  fu- 
ture, and  that  the  babes  and  sucklings  of  metaphysics, 
holding  firm  to  the  living  fact  that  underlies  all  reason 
and  all  philosophy,  may  be  nearer  the  kingdom  of  God, 
the  kingdom  of  truth,  the  kingdom  of  science,  even,  than 
the  hoariest  veterans  of  reason  who  reverence  only  rea- 
son ;  and  that  their  own.  With  the  widest  spiritual  free- 
dom, with  the  greatest  scientific  liberty,  no  grace  is  more 
compatible  and  more  comely  than  spiritual  and  scientific 
humility  ! 


MIRACLES.  301 

The  mystery  of  Christ's  incarnation  is  no  greater  than 
the  mystery  of  every  incarnation  ;  both  are  absolutely 
inscrutable.  Science  confesses  herself  no  nearer  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  to-day  than  she  was  at  the  beginning 
of  time.     But  tlie  one  is  in  the  order  of  nature  we  say. 

How  long  an  order  ?  How  wide  a  nature  ?  A  point  of 
time,  a  moment's  space.  For  we  see  that  even  in  this  one 
little  world  of  yesterday  the  sequences  are  not  unbroken. 
Even  here  Nature  herself  points  to  a  diviner  plan. 

If  the  Immanent  had  chosen  to  reveal  himself  through 
the  common  ways,  it  would  have  been  none  the  less  a 
revelation.  Is  it  less  a  revelation  if  from  the  first  throes 
of  life  to  this  nineteenth  centur}-,  e3^es  that  can  see,  na}', 
read  the  signs  of  a  higher  order,  may  see  in  the  incarna- 
tion what  the  protoplasm  meant ;  may  read  the  mystery  of 
redemption  in  the  riddle  of  the  parthenogenetic  S^^hinx; 
may  discern  along  this  one  shining  pathway  how  the  un- 
known and  invisible  universe  has  come  down  with  its 
own  divine  order  to  touch  our  lower  order  with  the  breath 
of  its  higher  life  ? 

It  is  not  breadth  or  culture  or  science,  but  a  lack  of 
all,  which  says  that  the  order  of  yesterday,  the  order  of  to- 
day is  the  eternal  order ;  that  the  order  of  here  and  the 
order  of  there  is  the  universal  order.  But  now  that 
Science  herself  confesses  that  the  order  of  here  is  not  the 
order  of  there,  that  the  order  of  now  is  not  the  order  of 
then,  this  argument  should  disappear  forever  from  the 
haunts  of  logic. 

From  what  we  know  of  the  long  history  of  man,  from 
the  myths  of  the  early  ages  to  the  news  of  the  morning 
paper,  from  the  Messiah  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
Christ  of  the  IS'ew  Testament  emerging  slowly  out  of 
shadow,  ruling  to-day  in  the  heart  and  at  tlie  head  of 
the  world,  I  gather  that  when  the  fullness  of  time  was 
come,  when  the  orderly  evolution  of  life  had  reached  the 


302  A  WASHINGTON  BIBLE  CLASS. 

destined  stage, — the  absolute  energy,  the  Almighty  God 
which  had  already  at  some  previous  unknown  stage 
breathed  into  man  and  man  alone  the  breath  of  divine 
life,  imparted  now  to  the  divine  life  in  man  a  new  energy, 
advanced  him  by  a  fresh  afflatus  of  the  eternal  love  to 
loftier  spiritual  heights.  Humanity,  which  had  been 
already  forever  differentiated  from  the  beast  by  the 
breath  of  a  distinct  life,  received  now  the  highest  seal 
of  its  consecration  to  Spirit  by  the  manifestation  of  God 
in  the  flesh. 

The  incarnation  of  God  in  Christ  was  no  more  a  mir- 
acle than  was  the  incarnation  of  God  in  man  ;  the  indi- 
vidualizing of  absolute  force  in  limited  personality.  It 
was  the  same  kind  of  miracle  operating  at  a  higher  stage 
of  evolution.  Of  the  constitution  of  spirit  we  are  utterly 
ignorant.  Of  the  alliance  between  spirit  and  matter  we 
know  but  the  alphabet.  We  live  on  the  shores  of  the  spirit- 
ual ocean.  Its  invigorating  breath  is  on  our  brows.  Its 
surge  sweeps  at  our  feet.  Its  murmur,  inarticulate  but 
inspiring,  is  in  our  ears.  All  that  life  has  of  worth  or  joy 
or  hope  is  wafted  to  us  in  the  breath  of  that  unfathom- 
able sea.  But  whither  it  bears  us  we  can  not  know  till  we 
embark  on  its  mysterious  tide. 

Foolish,  false,  trivial  rumors  of  miracles  no  more  invali- 
date miracle  than  false  and  foolish  men  forbid  the  dignity 
of  humanity.  Documents  have  their  worth  ;  but  the  ex- 
istence of  man  upon  the  earth  is  not  a  matter  of  docu- 
ments, and  the  existence  of  the  earth  prior  to  the  advent 
of  man  upon  it  is  not  a  matter  of  documents.  Yet  at 
some  time  between  the  two  came  a  miracle.  Whether  it 
came  suddenly  in  full  measure  or  subtly  without  palpable 
measure  matters  not.  There  was  a  moment  when  human 
reason  did  not  people  the  earth.  There  was  another  mo- 
ment when  human  reason  was  astir.  At  the  moment  be- 
tween when  human  reason  came  there  was  a  miracle. 


MIRACLES.  303 

Something  was  here  that  was  not  here  before.  A  new 
wave  of  the  absolute  force  never  refluent  overspread  the 
earth. 

Such  another  wave  from  the  eternal  energy,  which 
is  also — science  teaches  it — eternal  love — swept  over  the 
world  so  powerfully  in  Christ  that  it  stands  once  for  all  in 
the  long  history  of  man  as  the  Advent.  A  wave  never 
spent,  for  when  the  humanity  of  Christ  ceased  in  visible 
form,  as  must  be  if  God  were  to  assume  humanity,  a 
Holy  Spirit  remained,  a  vital  power, — remains  to-day, 
diffused,  prevailing  ;  independent  of  church  or  state  or 
school  or  creed,  though  using  all  for  the  behoof  of  men  ; 
the  largest  insweep  from  the  spiritual  world  this  world 
has  ever  known  ;  slowly  evolving  out  of  the  beastliness  of 
humanity,  in  eternal  order,  its  eternal  life. 


THE    EKD, 


<^^ 


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